Copy 1 


Brief 

DESCRIPTION OF THE 

American System of Water Purification 

OR 

Rapid Filtration 


AND 


SEWAGE DISPOSAL, 

PROTECTED BY GLOVER SECOND PATENT AS CONSTRUED BY 


UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR 
THE FIRST CIRCUIT. 


By 

AMERICAN WATER PURIFICATION COMPANY and AMERICAN 
SEWAGE DISPOSAL COMPANY OF BOSTON, 

JOHN N. McCLINTOCK, AM, C.E., 

President and General Manager, 

Office, 643 Old South Building. 


BOSTON: 

WRIGHT & POTTER PRINTING COMPANY, 
18 Post Office Square. 

1907. 



Copyrighted. 










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Brief 


DESCRIPTION OP 

American System of Water Purification or 
Rapid Filtration 

AND 

SEWAGE DISPOSAL, 

PROTECTED BY PATENT AS CONSTRUED BY COURT OF LAST RESORT, 

THE UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS 
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT. 


To whom it may concern: 

We wish to call your attention to onr system of rapid filtration, 
which applies to the purification of water more or less contami¬ 
nated, intended for domestic nse, or of sewage. 

We come to yon with a system protected by a patent construed 
by the court of last resort in patent causes. 

The condensed opinion of the United States Court of Appeals 
for the First Circuit is as follows: — 

Upon full consideration of the whole case, we find that the first Glover 
patent does not disclose the septic tank, and that the second Glover patent 
is for a system of rapid filtration, comprising two series of filter beds, 
one inside a ventilated structure and the other outside. It follows that 
the defendant’s apparatus does not infringe the Glover patent in suit 
by using a septic tank or septic tanks in combination with filtering beds. 

The Supreme Court of the United States have denied a petition 
for a writ of certiorari; and the Circuit Court of Appeals for the 
First Circuit have reaffirmed their finding, as quoted above; and 
this finding may be regarded as final and as the established law of 
the land. 



2 


For those skilled in the art of filtration, and the public, to 
clearly understand the meaning of the above construing of the 
patents, and to understand how the court have construed the basic 
patent broadly to cover and protect a discovery and invention of 
vital importance, it is necessary to understand the exact meaning 
of the term “ septic tank,” as used by the court; the meaning of 
the term “ rapid filtration,” and how the defendant's apparatus, 
that does not infringe, is constructed and used. 

Glover disclosed his discoveries and inventions by patents that 
require careful reading and study, and some knowledge of the art 
of filtration, before the same become clear and lucid statements as 
to how the specified apparatus should be constructed and used to 
obtain rapid filtration. The opinion of the court also requires to 
be read and studied with care and some knowledge of the art to be 
clearly understood. 

History. 

While Glover's great discovery and invention were becoming 
known and used literally around the whole world, — spreading 
throughout Great Britain, the continent of Europe, India, the 
Philippines, Japan and the Dominion of Canada,—Glover was 
like the prophet who was not without honor save in his own country. 

; We do not refer to social, civic or military honor, but to Glover's 
prophetic honor in the line of rapid filtration. It was a difficult 
matter to find works in our home circuit that illustrated Glover's 
ideas. We found a concern using the Glover apparatus after a 
fashion, laid our patent before the partner having the patent busi¬ 
ness of the company in charge, and called for a settlement. Part¬ 
ner seemed to think the patent disclosed the invention, paid us a 
small amount of money, did not carry out the rest of agreement, 
which was to aid to establish the validity and scope of patent, and 
shortly afterwards we were publicly charged with blackmailing a 
concern that is said to have accumulated an enormous fortune by 
similar underhanded means of collecting a royalty for the use of 
a patented apparatus. 

We learned that before we could collect a royalty without black¬ 
mailing, unless we represented an aggregation of capital that can 
ignore the law, we were bound to have the court construe our 
patent and adjudicate as to its validity and scope. We found a 
beautiful illustration of our system of rapid filtration in the Second 
Circuit, and parties willing to fight; but when it came to trial, 



3 


parties lay down, would not fight, paid our royalty. Our case in 
Third Circuit was met with the Fabian policy of procrastination 
and delay that bade fair to carry the case into the next century. 

We brought suit against defendant, not because defendant's ap¬ 
paratus is modem or fairly illustrative of Glover’s ideas, but be¬ 
cause it gave us a chance to test the validity and scope of patent 
by having the court construe it, because defendant wanted a little 
legal excitement, and because it was, in a way, Hobson’s choice. 

We are satisfied that the court have given a broad and compre¬ 
hensive scope to patent in construing it; defendant is satisfied be¬ 
cause defendants apparatus is found not to infringe. 

What was kxowx about Filtration m 1893, or the State 
of the Art. 

At that time it was found possible to filter 25,000 gallons of 
sewage daily upon an acre of open-air sewage sand filters, con¬ 
structed of the proper filtering material, properly underdrained and 
ventilated, by the bacteriological process known as oxidation or 
nitrification. At this rate an inch of sewage was applied to the 
filter daily; 2 inches was the limit; more than the usual amount 
would quickly render the filter inoperative; it would either clog 
the filter or escape unpurified. 

To understand why an oxidizing filter clogs at an excessive rate 
it becomes necessary to explain the nature of sewage. Sewage 
carries from 1 to 3 per cent, of suspended matter, largely car¬ 
bonaceous and nitrogenous, the former of vegetable and the latter 
of animal origin, the whole known as organic matter. The car¬ 
bonaceous matter, largely responsible for clogging the surface of a 
filter, is composed chiefly of wood fiber. 

When 50,000 gallons of sewage are applied to the filter, it covers 
it to the depth of 2 inches, and leaves a mat of organic matter 
thereon from %oo to %oo of an inch in thickness. This mat 
loses some of its thickness by evaporation before the filter receives 
the next dose of sewage; but it can be seen that unless the mat is 
scraped off from time to time it will clog the filter. It is of common 
knowledge that the finely divided organic matter also penetrates 
below the surface of filter, and, if not oxidized and literally con¬ 
sumed, will clog the filter and prevent its filtering. 


4 


Rapid Filtration. 

The Circuit Court found as follows: — 

Oxidizing bacterial action on open-air sewage sand filters was well 
known, and is not claimed as new with Glover. The secondary filter 
beds, located outside the structure, are intended for this well-known 
process. 

The following is taken from the report of the Massachusetts 
State Board of Health for 1895, p. 61: — 

The purification of sewage by intermittent filtration is not merely 
mechanical; that is, it is not a straining through fine pores, thereby 
holding back the organic matters in the sewage, but it is a chemical 
change in which the substances are converted into mineral matter, which 
passes off daily in the purified effluent. To effect this change . . . the 
necessary conditions are very slow motion of very thin films of liquid 
over the surface of particles having spaces between them sufficient to 
allow air to be in contact with the films of liquid. . . . [In] experiments 
with two filters containing the same kind of sand at Lawrence, to one 
of which sewage was applied upon the exposed surface of the sand, 
and to the other [ventilated] beneath a layer of loam [referring to the 
Glover Andover plan], it was found that the amount of sewage that 
could be disposed of by the former was more than twice as great as by 
the latter. 

It is of common knowledge that the capacity of an oxidizing 
sand filter, purifying liquid by what is commonly known as slow 
sand filtration, depends upon the character of the liquid treated. 
In 1893 and to-day, by slow sand filtration or intermittent filtra¬ 
tion, an acre purifies or filters 25,000 gallons of sewage in a day; 
but the same filter bed, by the same process of slow filtration, puri¬ 
fies, it may be, 2,000,000 gallons of contaminated river water. 

Thus when the court find that our patent is for a system of rapid 
filtration, comprising two series of filter beds, one in a ventilated 
structure and the other outside, and the State Board of Health of 
Massachusetts inform the public that the efficiency of an oxidizing 
filter in a ventilated structure under a bed of loam is reduced by 
more than half, the combination of the two to effect rapid filtration 
demands and implies other action in the inclosed filter than oxida¬ 
tion ; otherwise, the filtration instead of being rapid would be slower 
than slow sand filtration, even with primary and secondary filter 


5 


beds of the same size, and both acting to their full capacity; 
whereas the patent specifies that the secondary beds shall be of 
much larger area than the primary beds. 

To make this Point Clear. 

An acre will oxidize and filter 25,000 gallons of sewage in a 
day. A acre will oxidize and filter 6,250 gallons of sewage in a 
day. The two working to full capacity will filter 31,250 gallons in 
a day, both in the open air. A 14 acre in structure will oxidize 
and filter 3,125 gallons in a day. A y± acre in structure and 1 
acre outside, both working to full capacity, will oxidize and filter 

28.125 gallons in a day. The two working in combination, as 
specified by patent, will oxidize and purify and filter 3,125 gallons 
in one day. If action is reversed, sewage passing from secondary 
bed to primary bed, the two combined will filter 25,000 gallons in 
a day; thus using 1% acres to do the work of 1 acre; whereas 
working as specified it will operate one-eighth as fast as secondary 
bed without the primary bed. 

Two hundred and fifty thousand gallons per acre per day may be 
called rapid filtration. With such rate on secondary bed of 1 
acre, rate on primary bed of % acre would be 1,000,000 gallons 
per acre per day. 

Build a % acre tank, water tight, 7 feet deep; fill with ordinary 
filtering sand, 3 feet deep, that will pass 75,000,000 gallons of 
clear water in a day to an open-air sewage sand filter of 1 acre, 
and the two in combination as oxidizing filters will purify or filter 

3.125 gallons of sewage in one day; while the secondary filter, 
without the primary, will filter 25,000 gallons in the same time. 

If instead of using it as an oxidizing filter you charge it with 
250,000 gallons of sewage, filling the spaces in the sand with the 
sewage, the sewage will stand to a depth of 28 inches over the sand, 
12 inches of sewage being received and held in the interstices of 
the 3-foot filter. If a like amount is applied to filter the second 
day, the rate of filtration is said to be 1,000,000 gallons per acre 
per day. 

Assume that it takes twenty-four hours for filter to become 
charged, the sewage the second day will begin to run out, as fast 
as it runs in, from the outlet pipe built as specified upon the sec¬ 
ondary bed of 1 acre by way of distributing channels, and the efflu¬ 
ent from the under drains will be perfectly purified. 


6 


At the end of the month 1 inch of the sand in primary bed is 
removed on account of loss of head caused by clogging; the ap¬ 
paratus operates just the same in purifying 250,000 gallons of 
sewage daily. At the end of the second month another inch is re¬ 
moved, and the filter bed works just the same. 

Eemove an inch of sand every month for three years, and the 
bed works just the same, month after month. 

It is not difficult to explain to the unskilled public why Glover’s 
primary filter bed, filtering at such a rapid rate as 1,000,000 gal¬ 
lons per acre per day, does not clog, when if used for oxidation it 
would quickly clog at a tenth of said rate. If the sewage flows at a 
uniform rate, in seven hours the filtering material will be satu¬ 
rated, and the suspended matter will be largely arrested by sur¬ 
face of filter; thereafterwards, when bed is charged with sewage, 
there ensues a mechanical separation of the matter in suspension, 
which may be thus broadly explained. The liquid, brought to a 
state of almost perfect rest, having a very slow movement, has a 
natural tendency to clarify itself by the difference in specific 
gravity between the liquid and the matter in suspension, the light, 
fatty, carbonaceous matter floating, the heavy nitrogenous matter 
sinking. Thus the matter that clogs the ordinary filter is kept 28 
inches above the surface of filter when the filter is doing its duty, 
and is sustained in place by the liquid. 

The nitrogenous matter, the waste product of animal life, from 
which life has departed, comes to the bed in a state of decay or 
putrefaction, and the decay and disintegration continue, greatly 
accelerated by the conditions afforded by the tank and the presence 
of other rotting matter. It does not require scientific knowledge, 
and very little observation, to know that a piece of meat, which is 
nitrogenous, will rot quicker than a piece of wood, which is car¬ 
bonaceous; and that wood in a damp place, as on the damp loam, 
will rot quicker than on a dry masonry foundation.; that finely 
divided organic matter will rot quicker than large bodies; that 
such substances as butter and milk, if exposed to putrefaction, 
will putrefy; and that Glover’s primary filter bed, separating, ar¬ 
resting and retaining all imaginable rotting things, becomes a 
very hotbed of rot. 

Thus the finely divided nitrogenous matter arrested by surface 
of filter quickly rots, the water which forms its chief constituent 
being released and flowing through filter, while the gases entering 


7 


into its composition bubble np and float away from the surface of 
the liquid, if provision is made for their escape. 

The rot also attacks the fatty and carbonaceous matter on the 
surface of the liquid, and treats it in the same manner, only more 
slowly. 

The rot or fermentation, commencing with the nitrogenous 
matter on surface of filter and acting on the floating matter, ex¬ 
tends down through the whole body of the filtering material, con¬ 
verting it into a rapid anaerobic filter bed, so that, as Glover ex¬ 
pressed it, “ the effluent is clarified and partially purified ” without 
offense, and is ready to receive subsequent rapid treatment upon 
small open-air sewage sand filters. 

Glover’s idea, undoubtedly, was to adapt the filtering material 
to the character of the liquid to be treated, sand or gravel being re¬ 
quired for one liquid, and only suitable construction for another. 

To find out the limit of this rapid filter; after the sand is all 
removed, let 500,000 gallons be treated in one day. Still it works 
well in purifying the sewage. 

It treats 1,000,000 gallons of sewage in one day, and has been 
found to work at that rate for seven years satisfactorily without 
clogging secondary filter. 

This apparatus, operated as Glover specifies it should be oper¬ 
ated, by primary filtration and secondary filtration, will emit a 
non-putrescible effluent, harmless, odorless and colorless, of 5,000,- 
000 gallons a day; whereas by oxidation it will purify 3,125 gallons, 
and quickly clog if more than that amount is applied. 

That is, the same filter will work sixteen hundred times more 
rapidly if it is worked right than if it is worked wrong; and ten 
times more rapidly if the filtering material is used in the ordinary 
way for slow sand filtration, than if it is worked as two oxidizing 
filters in combination. 

Now, when the court state that the system is for rapid filtration, 
and a given amount of filtering material will filter ordinarily by 
slow sand filtration 31,250 gallons, and by the way specified by 
patent and disclosed to the experts 5,000,000 gallons, and by oxida¬ 
tion 3,125 gallons, the court cannot reasonably intend to confine 
action in beds to oxidation. 

If the above-suggested apparatus be used to filter contaminated 
river water, it may be found possible to purify daily 2,000,000 
gallons by slow sand filtration, or oxidation in secondary bed, — a 


8 


higher rate clogging filter or not purifying effluent. The primary 
bed, at same rate, will purify 500,000 gallons daily. Acting to¬ 
gether in combination for oxidation the two will purify 500,000 
or 2,000,000 gallons, according to which way the current runs. 

Operated as Glover’s primary bed should be operated, in com¬ 
bination with the secondary bed, the apparatus will readily purify 
10,000,000 gallons daily, whether the action in the primary bed 
to cause rapid filtration is that of anaerobic or facultative bacteria. 

Porous Pipes. 

If one skilled in the art of filtration were designing and con¬ 
structing one of our primary filter beds of one-fourth of an acre, 
“ composed of filtering material, such as sand and gravel, or any 
of the materials used for such purpose, resting on a liquid-tight 
concrete bottom,” he finds that the patent specifies that “ An outlet 
pipe communicates with the filter bed and receives the effluent 
therefrom, and delivers it to the corresponding secondary bed,” 
in above case, of one acre. 

In order that the outlet pipe may communicate with the filter 
bed there must be underdrains, or “ a series of porous pipes, dis¬ 
posed upon the said bottoms and converging to an outlet pipe; ” 
and, after the sand and gravel are all removed, as above suggested, 
“the walls of said pipes constitute the filtering material. The 
pipes have no direct communication with the spaces inclosed by 
the walls of the primary beds, and the effluent enters said pipes 
only through the porous wall of the pipes, which may be of un¬ 
glazed earthenware.” 

It is in evidence that Glover preferred coarse gravel to sand for 
his filtering material in his primary bed; and of course the under- 
drains should be porous enough to permit the liquid matter to 
escape; and when they do become clogged they may be removed, 
like the other filtering material, leaving only the submerged inlet 
and outlet pipes. 

Glover left out the submerged inlet pipe in one form of primary 
bed, and did not rely upon even the submerged outlet pipe; for he 
specifies that “ The primary beds may be of any suitable construc¬ 
tion to accomplish this end,” i.e. } “to arrest the solid matter and 
permit the escape of the liquid matter.” Glover’s 1888 wall of 
gravel may accomplish this end; or a dashboard may be the filtering 
material that makes the primary bed operative for rapid filtration. 


9 


The patent specifies the apparatus; the court find it is for rapid 
filtration; and it is a self-evident fact to an expert that it must act 
as a rapid filter, as the court find, because it cannot possibly act 
in any other way. 

Slow Filtration Impossible by Glover Apparatus. 

We have attempted to demonstrate that rapid filtration by oxida¬ 
tion is a physical impossibility by the Glover apparatus; the Mas¬ 
sachusetts State Board of Health, by experiments carried on at 
Lawrence, have demonstrated that slow filtration of any kind is 
a physical impossibility with the trapped outlet to the primary 
filter bed specified by the second Glover patent. 

The following extract is from the report of the Massachusetts 
State Board of Health, 1890, pp. 125-129: — 

The General Results with Tank No. 12. 

Intermittent filtration of sewage continued with this tank of coarse sand 
from February 16 to July 26, 1888. In the last month the effluent was 
a clear, bright and colorless water, containing less free and albuminoid 
ammonia than ordinary public drinking water supplies. The same amount 
of sewage — the equivalent of 30,000 gallons per acre — was applied 
daily throughout the whole time of experiment. The organic matter of 
the sewage was being nearly all burned up, 99.2 per cent, of the nitrog¬ 
enous organic matter being removed. On July 27 the outlet of Tank 
No. 12 was closed and the tank filled with sewage; after which, for four 
months, the surface of the sand was kept covered with sewage, and the 
same quantity as previously applied was daily drawn through the tank. 
The conditions of the filter were thus changed from intermittent filtration 
to continuous filtration, in which the surface was continually covered 
with sewage, so that no air could enter, and the liquid, as it passed down 
through the sand, filled all the space between the particles. 

Continuous filtration resulted in a complete cessation of the burning up 
of the nitrogenous organic matter of the sewage. Some of this was 
stored in the filter, thus reducing the albuminoid ammonia of the effluent, 
but the sum of ammonias grew to be as great as those in the sewage on 
the surface. The effluent became somewhat turbid and had a strong odor. 

Tank No. 12 was 60 inches in depth, and the sewage during this 
experiment was fifty days in going through the filter; thus dem¬ 
onstrating the fact that the Glover apparatus, which cannot oxi¬ 
dize rapidly, cannot filter continuously slowly. This information 
is for the public and not for experts, — because all experts know 
it, or they are not experts in the art of filtration. 


10 


There can be no oxidation without ventilation. As a strainer it 
is not a filter. Sand fine enough for a strainer would clog at or 
beneath the surface near the inlet pipe with material like axle- 
grease, the clogging spreading over whole surface of filter and 
preventing escape of liquid matter; and not conforming to specifi¬ 
cation, which permits its escape. 

It may not be modest for us to make the statement, but never¬ 
theless it is true, that Glover invented the first, only and last ap¬ 
paratus for rapid filtration, whereby, without the use of chemicals, 
natural laws are relied upon to accomplish the end and permit and* 
effect rapid filtration or purification. 

The Septic Tank. 

The Cameron tank is described under four claims: — 

1. For the bacteriological treatment of sewage, a tank having an 
outlet (submerged). 

2. For the bacteriological treatment of sewage, a tank having 
an inlet (submerged). 

3. For the bacteriological treatment of sewage, a tank having 
an air-tight cover, an inlet (submerged), and an outlet (sub¬ 
merged) . 



4. For improved apparatus hereinbefore described, and shown 
in the accompanying drawings, for the bacteriological treatment 
of sewage. 



















11 


The patent specifies: “ By this invention, further it is possible 
to get rid of the sludge difficulty because the solid portion of crude 
sewage is entirely thrown into solution; . . . the expense of dealing 
with the precipitated matter is also obviated.” 

The court find, and it is the law, that “ the Cameron patent 
clearly describes the septic tank.” 

Therefore a septic tank is a tank for the bacteriological treat¬ 
ment of sewage, having an outlet submerged, an inlet submerged, 
and an air-tight cover. 

Lest there should be any doubt on this matter of law, the court 

find: — 

A still earlier description of the septic tank and septic process is 
found in the Mouras French patent of September 22, 1881, and the 
Mouras American patent, No. 268122, bearing date November 28, 1882. 

The Mouras Automatic and Odorless Scavenger is thus described 
in said French patent: — 

This apparatus of extreme simplicity is composed firstly of three 
agents, viz.: — 

1. An air-tight tank, hermetically closed, of a capacity in proportion 
to the needs it is to satisfy. 

2. A feed pipe, B, sealed to the top of the tank, and destined to 
receive evacuations, slops and rain water. 

3. An elbow pipe, C, likewise fastened to the upper part of the tank, 
and serving to discharge the sewage contained in the tank. 

The feed pipe B as well as the discharge pipe C, both well sealed, are 
to plunge from 10 to 15 centimeters into the liquid in the tank. This 
is what closes it hermetically. 

Glover very wisely did not use the term “ septic tank ” as a 
name for that part of his apparatus for rapid filtration, wherein 
the “ solids were converted into liquids, and both solids and liquids 
into gases,” and which has provision for the removal of gases, 
which the septic tank has not; he did not have in mind, when 
choosing a name, the rotting action going on in his beds, but 
thought only, apparently, of the filtration and the purification 
therein of the polluted water. 







12 


The Septic Process. 

The court find that “the Cameron patent clearly describes the 
. . . septic process.” The court have defined the term “septic 
tank.” 

As to the septic process the court are equally explicit; for the 
court state: — 

Respecting septic action, it was said before the English Society of 
Arts, in 1886: “ During spontaneous subsidence, which is a much slower 
process than precipitation, fermentation sets in. Solids are converted 
into liquids, and both solids and liquids into gases.” 

On the same subject, M. Moigno wrote, in January, 1882: “The 
mysterious agents of fermentation, causing the decomposition and lique¬ 
faction of the fasces, are the vibrions or anaerobic bacteria which, ac¬ 
cording to Pasteur, are destroyed by oxygen, and which manifest their 
destructive activity only in vessels from which the air is excluded.” 

In finding that the Cameron patent clearly describes or discloses 
the septic process in the Mouras or Cameron air-tight tank, with 
submerged inlet and outlet pipes, when the Cameron patent is 
silent as to whether the bacteriological action specified as in the 



Glover’s Primary Filter Beds, 


The construction and use of which disclose that 
solids are converted into liquids, and both solids 
and liquids into gases, having provision for es¬ 
cape of gases. 


tank differs from the well-known bacterial action in the open-air 
sewage sand filters, and makes no mention of the septic process, 
the court establish the law that the construction and use of the 
apparatus disclose the process. 


















13 


The Glover second patent in the drawings forming a part of the 
specification shows, in one form of that part of the apparatus 
called the primary filter beds, submerged inlet pipes whereby the 
liquid-tight tanks are to be charged with sewage, and in both forms 
of the apparatus shows submerged outlet pipes; therefore, as the 
court find that the air-tight cover is not essential for the septic 
process even in the septic tank, the construction and use of the 
Glover apparatus must legally disclose the septic process or putre¬ 
factive action, if the Cameron apparatus, built in like manner, 
discloses it, as the court find that it does. 

There is no doubt of the fact that the Cameron tank, by its 
construction and use, discloses the septic process, as found by the 
court, as the septic process is defined by the court, but not as 
defined by the Cameron patent, whereby in the tank, by bacterio¬ 
logical treatment, “the solid portion of crude sewage is entirely 
thrown into solution,” and whereby “the expense of dealing with 
the precipitated matter is also obviated.” 

The tank by which even the organic solid matter of crude sew¬ 
age is entirely thrown into solution is a dream yet to be realized. 

Mr. Glover did claim an absolute disappearance of all solids, either in 
the central tank of the system, or the subsequent filters grouped around 
the tank. 1 

Putrefaction as a process must have been recognized by our 
remote ancestors before they moved into their caves; some animals, 
like the hyena, recognize it; some birds, like the vulture, recognize 
it; some fish, like the salmon, recognize it, because the salmon 
avoids it; putrefaction was well known, and is not claimed as new 
with Glover. 

Pasteur is universally credited with the discovery that putre¬ 
faction is a living ferment due to the absence of air. If Pasteur 
invented the so-called Pasteur filter, he certainly did not discover 
rapid filtration. It is not claimed that Glover discovered that 
putrefaction is a living ferment. 

Glover’s Discovery. 

What Glover did discover and disclose to the world in his first 
patent was not the air-tight septic tank, but the fundamental prin¬ 
ciple that putrefactive action is due not to the absence of air 


1 Transactions, American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. XLVI. (1901), p. 474. 



14 


but to the presence of water or moisture. He applied his great 
discovery to the disposal of the solid and offensive matter in mu¬ 
nicipal sewage. 

Glover’s next notable discovery is on record in the 1888 report 
of the Massachusetts State Board of Health, p. 11: — 

Mr. Glover’s original scheme, as far as it relates to the purification 
of sewage, consists of three principal parts: — 

1. A settling basin, which, without the aid of chemicals, is intended 
to separate and retain the solid portion of the sewage. 

2. A wall of gravel at one end of the settling basin, through which 
the sewage is expected to filter. 

3. A series of arches of soft brick . . . through which it is intended 
to filter. . . . 

The wall of gravel at one end of the settling basin is the anaerobic 
filter of to-day. 

As to knowledge of Glover’s next remarkable invention, the 
anonymous anomaly forming a part of the Brockton sewage dis¬ 
posal works, planned and designed by Glover and built by his 
friend and pupil in 1893, we are indebted to the documents sub¬ 
mitted by, and the evidence of, said friend and pupil. It is one 
of those masterpieces of human ingenuity, diplomatic if not Mach¬ 
iavellian in purpose and design, that is destined to give its in¬ 
ventor a lofty niche in the Temple of Tame. 

To the State Board of Health it is a reservoir for the storage of 
the night flow of sewage. 1 

To the pupil-builder it is a settling tank, differing from other 
settling tanks only by addition of an “ agitator.” 

The leading technical publications, not knowing, have mistakenly 
called it a septic tank. There is too much danger of explosion 
from emanating gases, as at Saratoga, to warrant its use as a 
septic tank. 

It was designed by Glover to act as the primary filter bed of his 
system of rapid filtration, that was taking form in his fertile 
brain; and it has been used as a primary filter bed for long periods 
of time. 

. Glover’s last invention of a system of rapid filtration was the 
crowning effort of a long life devoted to the public good; he dis¬ 
covered that the first one of his series of tanks of his 1882 ap- 


1 Report, 1895, p. 605. 



15 


paratus would not only dispose of the sludge but would filter or 
purify sewage; and he adopted for it the name of “primary filter 
bed,” — the first step of the sewage in his system of rapid filtra¬ 
tion, the very name implying the well-known bacterial action in 
any filter bed. Glover called the action, going on in bed to dispose 
of the sludge and purify the effluent, primary filtration. 

When a water-tight tank is charged with sewage it is a cesspool; 
when a cesspool is constructed to separate, arrest and retain the 
solid and the greater part of the offensive matter, and permit the 
effluent to escape clarified and partially purified, it is Glover’s 
primary filter bed, having provision for the removal of the gases 
into which the “ solids and liquids ” are converted by putrefactive 
action, not due to the absence of air but to the presence of water. 
The provision for the removal of offensive gases is an important 
feature of Glover’s invention; but probably the most important 
feature of the invention, aside from the complete filtration or puri¬ 
fication of the contaminated water and the partial bacteriological 
decomposition and disposal of the sludge, disclosed by the con¬ 
struction and use of the apparatus, is the use of small filter beds 
and the reduction in the cost of constructing the system. 

The court find: — 

It is possible there may be some septic action in this filtering-bed 
receptacle, just as there may be some action of this character in the 
ordinary settling tank. This, however, is immaterial, the question being 
whether these beds were intended to operate as septic tanks. 

The bacteria that enter into the process of filtration are broadly 
subdivided into three classes, like the rest of created nature; the 
aerobic bacteria are in the air above us; the anaerobic bacteria are 
in the earth or water beneath us; the facultative bacteria are every¬ 
where. 

Aerobic bacteria are held responsible for the action going on in 
our outside secondary filter beds, known as nitrification, or slow 
sand filtration. 

To use our apparatus for rapid filtration we are obliged to de¬ 
pend upon the action of bacteria, aerobic, anaerobic or facultative; 
and as the former permits rapid filtration under no known condi¬ 
tions, we are obliged to look to the two latter for the rapid action. 

Facultative bacteria acting as anaerobic bacteria for the filtra¬ 
tion of water are to all intents and purposes anaerobic bacteria; 





16 


therefore to obtain the rapid filtration which the court find our 
patent discloses we must depend upon the action of anaerobic 
bacteria. 

The action of anaerobic bacteria is septic action, a living ferment 
due to the absence of air, as Pasteur thought; to the presence of 
water, as Glover thought; commonly called putrefactive action, or 
putrefaction, or rot, for short. 

The septic tank is one thing, the court have fixed that exactly to 
the satisfaction of everybody, including the inventor of the name 
if not of the tank itself; septic action is quite another thing, and 
it is not confined to the air-tight septic tank, with its submerged 
inlet and outlet pipes, but is present whenever and wherever organic 
matter is putrefying, and most active under the favorable conditions 
offered by moisture in the atmosphere or in fresh running water 
confined in a tank. 

Therefore, as the patent discloses to the court that the construc¬ 
tion and use of our primary filtering-bed receptacle indicates the 
possibility that there may be some septic action therein, as in 
an ordinary settling tank; and as the patent provides for the pres¬ 
ence of an optional settling tank outside of the primary filters; 
and as by no possibility can the primary filter beds specified by 
patent act as settling tanks; and as the primary filters are to 
rapidly filter the sewage; and as anaerobic bacteria are the only 
known agents causing rapid filtration; and as some anaerobic bac¬ 
teria or any anaerobic bacteria are all that are required to seed or 
impregnate a primary filter bed, and make it operative as a rapid 
filter, — we understand that the court, in finding any septic action 
in our primary bed, find all that we rely upon for the action of our 
system of rapid filtration. 

One of the most eminent sanitary and civil engineers in the 
world, who refused to act as our expert but consented to give the 
court all the information on the subject he could, testified: “ What 
is to-day known as the septic tank is a structure in which there is 
a mechanical separation of the matter in suspension from the liquid 
sewage, which is the same claim apparently made for the primary 
filter beds.” 

It follows by finding of court that what is known to-day as a 
septic tank, except Cameron’s tank and Mouras’s “ glorified cess¬ 
pool,” should be known as a primary filter bed. 




17 


It appears in evidence that one of the leading instructors in this 
country several years ago adopted the name as appropriate and 
fitting. 

Brentwood Plant. 

The court, in finding that the patent, while not disclosing the 
process and not a process patent, and not for a monopoly of a 
process as old as creation, discloses the invention and is for an 
apparatus for rapid filtration, construe the patent for the broad 



Brentwood Plant. 


invention of rapid filtration, if, as is the case, rapid filtration can 
be obtained only by the use of the apparatus constructed and used 
in the manner specified and disclosed by patent. 

The public will recognize the justice and equity of this finding 
of the court when informed that Glover not only made the dis¬ 
covery and invention, and disclosed it in his patent, but person¬ 
ally, in his very old age, built his apparatus for rapid filtration at 
Brentwood, N. H., — the first apparatus built in any part of the 
world for rapid filtration. 

From careful experiments conducted elsewhere with a similar 
plant it is found that the sludge is reduced by retention in the 
primary filter from 25 cubic feet of dry organic matter per million 
gallons treated to 3 cubic feet; and that where ordinary sludge 
carries from 92 per cent, to 98 per cent, moisture, the solid matter 
deposited in these beds, when removed from time to time, carries 60.9 
per cent, moisture. 

The important discovery disclosed by this Brentwood plant, as 






18 


well as by the patent, is the mechanical separation of the matter 
in suspension from the liquid sewage in the primary filter bed, and 
the rapid filtration of the clarified and partially purified effluent in 
the secondary filter beds. 

It may be added that the Brentwood plant is as efficient to-day in 
the rapid filtration of sewage as it was when built, nearly eleven 
years ago. 

The opinion of the court that Glover’s mind was running in the 
direction of intermittent filtration; and the opinion of the Massa¬ 
chusetts State Board of Health, perhaps the most eminent au¬ 
thority in the world on the subject of filtration, that “ there would 
be a constant fiow of sewage through the proposed (Glover) tanks,” 
is reconciled by the fact that the Andover plans and the patent 
itself show what is now called “ intermittent continuous filtration.” 1 

First Glover Patent. 

When the first Glover patent expired by limitation, May 30, 
1899, the invention and discovery therein disclosed became the 
property of each and every citizen of the United States, to own, 
to use and to defend, like any other propert}', and safeguarded by 
the laws of his country. It did not disclose the absurd “septic 
tank,” or the absurd bacteriological treatment of sewage therein, 
by which “ the solid portion of crude sewage is entirely thrown 
into solution.” 

The invention disclosed by first patent had for its object to en¬ 
able sewage matter, or the suspended matter, or the so-called 
sludge, to be disposed of by letting the liquid flow through a series 
of tanks, depositing in each a part of the matter held in suspen¬ 
sion. “ During spontaneous subsidence, which is a much slower 
process than precipitation, fermentation sets in. Solids are con¬ 
verted into liquids, and both solids and liquids into gases,” ample 
provision for which is made by the patent. 

The finding by the court, that the first Glover patent does not 
disclose the septic tank, is liable to convey the impression that 
Glover was not the first man in the world to intentionally utilize 
putrefactive action to dispose of sewage sludge in the only reason¬ 
able and effective way. 

It may be possible that the court intended to find that Glover 
did not disclose by his first patent how the matter deposited in 


Repoit. 1895, p. 60. 







19 


tanks was disposed of, or how much of it was disposed of. Glover 
provided the tanks, with an inlet and an outlet, and a flow of 
sewage, and nature does the rest; and that is all there is to an 
apparatus utilizing putrefactive action for the disposal of munic¬ 
ipal sludge; and that is what Glover's first patent disclosed to his 
countrymen, and is or should be common property to-day. 

'We have an added interest in the patent from the fact established 
by it that Glover was the discoverer and inventor of the process, 
or the utilization of the process, that makes possible his later system 
of rapid filtration. 

Bacteria. 

The anaerobic bacterium seems to be a product of animal life 
almost universally but not always present in sewage, quick to 
grow, rapid in action, requiring food and fresh water, disappearing 
when its work is accomplished, easily killed, and readily trans¬ 
planted from one tank to another. 

There is no difficulty attending the development of the an¬ 
aerobic bacteria; care and an infinite amount of trouble must be 
taken not to develop them. An unwashed milk can will bring 
them into being. They are nurtured by filthy conditions and are 
banished by cleanliness. They are closely allied to all forms of 
disease germs, and travel from place to place on the foot or the 
wing of an insect. They lodge on the point of a needle or the 
blade of a knife, and must be removed to make modern surgery 
possible. They are classed as species of vegetable life of a very 
low order, made up of a cell; and now they are known they are 
dreaded much more than carnivorous beasts of the African 
jungle. 

No wonder the State Board of Health forbade and condemned 
their employment for years in sewage disposal, in fear lest the use 
of such agents bring harm to the people. 

Offensive, repulsive and shunned, attending death and corrup¬ 
tion, a menace to man, the anaerobic bacteria were accorded a valu¬ 
able place in the workshop of nature by Glover, who discovered their 
use and harnessed their terrible power for the welfare of man in 
the rapid filtration of water. 

These little micro-organisms named bacteria come into our ap¬ 
paratus to cause rapid filtration. Whence they come or whither 
they go, no man knows. They are an army of life cells, of all sorts 
and conditions. Dr. Stephens, the biologist, says: — 





20 


Although the size of cells differs considerably relatively to each other 
in different tissues and situations, the difference is mainly within certain 
definite limits; and the general type and form are unmistakable and 
apparently unchangeable. 

The cell of life was formerly regarded much in the light of a modicum 
of pure protoplasm, which latter substance in turn was supposed to be 
structureless. 

We now know that a cell may be something very complex. It is, in all 
probability, the seat of a well-nigh infinite organization of the sentient, 
living particles, aggregated, in-wrought and collocated upon a plane of 
growth and development far beneath the reach of the microscope at 
present. Not otherwise could it be the theatre of such hereditary effects 
as we now clearly perceive it to be; effects which have been garnered 
there during many millions of years, not one of which seems ever to have 
been really lost, or fails, even after centuries of passivity, to be able to 
reappear. 

This army comes into the first tank of Glover’s first apparatus 
a million strong to every cubic centimeter; and the first thing they 
do is to increase their own force to 50,000,000 to the cubic centi¬ 
meter; and then commences the battle for the benefit of humanity. 
It wages fiercely, and our enemies are almost eliminated, but in 
the strife our allies are almost annihilated, and the noble arm)’ 
escapes from the field of battle with its number reduced about 85 
per cent, of what entered the tank. In the strife the dissolved 
oxygen in the liquid that makes fish life possible is entirely ex¬ 
hausted, and the gases or the smoke of battle is carried to the upper 
air. 

When the liquid overflows from the first tank to the second in a 
thin film, the thirsty water absorbs from the fresh air drawn over 
it all the oxygen it requires to give new life and energy to the es¬ 
caping army of warriors; and the fight goes on to entirely eliminate 
our enemies, only differing in name. It is now called nitrification 
or oxidation. 

In the third tank the process is repeated, the terrible anaerobes 
having entirely disappeared, an(J, in a large measure, the am¬ 
phibious facultatives, leaving the strife to the slow acting aerobes, 
as in any stream of running water thoroughly aerated. 

If the last two tanks hold the flow of twenty-four hours, the 
effect on the liquid is the same as if it flowed in an open stream 
for twenty-four hours; and if current of stream had velocity of 







21 


two miles an hour, it would be the same in tanks to effect purifica¬ 
tion as if the liquid flowed in stream forty-eight miles. 

It is a well-known fact to-day that Glover was right in stating 
that the effluent would pass from his last tank to the ground or to 
a suitable conduit in a practically pure condition, — such as at 
Lawrence is converted into drinking water for a city. 

Glover’s first apparatus was not the unscientific “ septic tank; ” 
but it was a wonderful and scientific invention to rapidly remove 
from polluted water the greater part of the offensive matter. 

It is an established fact from evidence of defense in suit, that 
Glover recognized bacteria as the active agents in his tanks to dis¬ 
pose of sewage sludge and make possible his rapid filtration in 
1891; but his neighbors and friends give the date of this knowl¬ 
edge of Glover’s as 1881. In any event, he was the pioneer to recog¬ 
nize and apply bacterial action in the disposal of sewage in the 
rapid filtration of water. 

The patent specifies what is to be done with the insoluble mat¬ 
ter deposited in the various tanks of the system; for while it was 
being removed “the disposal of sewage (sludge) was going on at 
the same time in the other wings.” 

The whole scientific world to-day practically concedes to Glover 
the credit of making this discovery and invention of the prelimi¬ 
nary treatment of polluted water, to permit its rapid and complete 
purification by subsequent treatment. 

Chronology. 

Glover submitted his Andover plans for system of rapid filtra¬ 
tion August 1, 1895; on record in State archives, with report dated 
August 5, 1895; fully described as to construction and use in report 
of Massachusetts State Board of Health for year 1895, pages 
59-62. 

Glover applied for his second patent for a system of rapid filtra¬ 
tion September 23, 1895. 

The Glover system of rapid filtration as exemplified by the 
Andover plans was disclosed to the public in the “ Boston Herald,” 
October 4, 1895, by a popular and technical article, clearly indi¬ 
cating the construction and use of apparatus to effect rapid filtra¬ 
tion. 

The town of Andover received from the State authorities a 
report on plans October 10, 1895. 


22 



Figs. 3, 6. Glover’s Andover Plan, Aug. 1, 1895. 

Figs. 4, 5. Glover’s Primary Filter Beds, Sept. 23, 1895. 
Figs. 1, 2. Cameron’s Septic Tank, Nov. 8, 1895. 

Figs. 7, 8. Glover’s Brentwood Plant, Dec. 4, 1895. 





























































23 


The English patent for the Cameron tank, a copy of Glover’s 
Andover tank, without the ventilation and the small outside filter 
beds, was applied for November 8, 1895. 

December 4, 1895, Glover and associates entered into a contract 
to build the Brentwood works for rapid filtration. 

February 26, 1896, Glover’s system of rapid filtration at Brent¬ 
wood was in working order, and was visited by a concourse of 
prominent citizens, an account of the visit, the names of the visitors 
and an account of the works being in the “ Boston Herald ” of that 
date. 

Early in year 1896 an illustrated pamphlet was issued, disclosing 
the construction and use of the Glover System of rapid filtration, 
thus: — 

The sewage is received through the main sewer entering the struc¬ 
ture, thence through branch pipes controlled by gates to either set of 
collecting tanks and filter bed, so that an intermittent flow may be main¬ 
tained. The sewage received in the larger collecting tank is clarified 
by sedimentation, depositing here most of the sludge, and passes on to 
the smaller tank, where nearly all the remainder of the organic matter 
held in suspension is removed; thence the sewage flows upon the filter 
bed, holding all the organic matter in solution but little in suspension. 

February 28, 1896, a digest of the “ Herald ” article of October 
4, 1895, explaining the construction and use of the Glover apparatus 
for the Glover system of rapid filtration, was sent to the Patent 
Office. . 

April 3, 1896, the second Glover patent, which had been three 
times rejected, was allowed. 

May 5, 1896, the patent was granted. 

Infringement. 

The court might have found that the Cameron “ septic tank,” 
clearly describing the septic process by its construction and use, 
was anticipated by the primary filter beds of the Glover second 
patent, as well as by the Mouras “Automatic Vidangeuse,”’and by 
the ventilated tanks of the apparatus specified by the first Glover 
patent, which was the pioneer in utilizing putrefactive action in the 
disposal of sludge. 

The court also might have found that the defendant’s apparatus, 
instead of being a septic tank, is to all intents and purposes the 
primary filter bed of the second Glover patent. 




24 


It may be stated as a fact, established by the evidence of both 
parties in the suit, that defendant’s apparatus was not built for 
rapid filtration, and is not used for rapid filtration; for which 



Andover Plan. 

Technically described in “ Boston Herald,” Oct. 4,1895. 


reason the court may have found that the apparatus, not being 
constructed or used for rapid filtration, is not of a suitable con¬ 
struction to cause it to infringe. 


Summary. 

While from well-established data in the art of filtration it is 
possible to demonstrate that rapid filtration can only be obtained 
by means of the Glover apparatus, and by the Glover apparatus 
utilizing the well-known process of oxidation in the secondary 
filter beds and the newly discovered rapid anaerobic action in the 
primary filter bed; and that the Glover apparatus cannot act for 
slow filtration under any conditions, and if it acts at all it must 
act as a rapid filter for rapid filtration, — it appears to be a rea¬ 
sonable and legal deduction that the inventor of such a remarkable 
and valuable apparatus must have intended it to operate in the 
only way it can operate. 

Now, as Congress, acting under constitutional authority, has 























25 


enacted the law that the inventor or discoverer shall disclose “ the 
manner and process of making, constructing, compounding and 
using ” his invention or discovery, “ in such full, clear, concise and 
exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art or science to 
which it appertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to 
make, construct, compound and use the same; ” and as the court, 
having had the evidence of the most eminent practitioners of what 
may be termed a new art or science laid before them, thus becoming 
skilled in the art or science to which Glover’s apparatus apper¬ 
tains, have found that the Glover apparatus is intended for a 
system of rapid filtration, it appears to be a reasonable and legal 
deduction that the court intended the apparatus to operate. 

Now, as the laws of nature, disclosed to those skilled in the art 
of filtration, by costly experiments carried on for a long series of 
years, prevent the Glover apparatus from operating in any other 
way than by the use of an anaerobic filter in the ventilated struc¬ 
ture, in combination with filtering beds outside, it appears to be a 
reasonable and legal deduction that the court intended it to so 
operate. 

To assume that the court intended that the primary bed in one 
form of apparatus specified should act as a contact bacteria bed, 
filling up slowly with sewage, and when full discharging the efflu¬ 
ent upon the secondary filter beds, and that the anaerobic action 
that makes this use possible is to take place in the optional settling 
tank, is to read into the patent the optional settling tank per¬ 
forming the specified functions of the primary filter bed. 

To assume that the court intended to give a broader meaning to 
the term “ septic tank ” than they do give, when they find that the 
Cameron patent clearly describes the “ septic tank,” and intended 
by the term to include any receptacle affording the proper con¬ 
ditions to bring about rapid putrefactive action, such as the tanks 
of the first Glover patent and the primary filter bed of the second 
Glover patent, is illogical and untenable, for the reason that the 
court state explicitly that the first Glover patent does not dis¬ 
close the septic tank, and inferentially that the primary filter bed 
of the second Glover patent is not a septic tank. 

To assume that the court intended to find that the tanks of the 
first Glover patent, which are not septic tanks, do not disclose 
septic action as defined by the court, whereby “ solids are con¬ 
verted into liquids, and both solids and liquids into gases,” when 


2(3 


the specified apparatus in working order emits only “ practically 
pure water” and offensive gases, is untenable, for the court find 
that “if any portion of the sewage is permitted to remain for a 
considerable time in such a tank there will be more or less fer¬ 
mentation, and this would be true of the Glover tanks;” and if 
the solid and offensive matter of the sewage remain long enough 
in the tank to become separated from the liquid matter, and per¬ 
mit of its escape in a practically pure condition, we get all the 
septic action we want as a beginning of our system of rapid filtra¬ 
tion. We have no further interest in the sludge, and leave it in 
the tank to take care of itself. 

To assume, as do our friends in the Third Circuit, that the court 
— who have found that the second Glover patent discloses the dis¬ 
covery and invention of a system of rapid filtration, which is the 
very gist of the patent, the function that gives commercial value 
to Glover’s apparatus, and the object aimed at by hundreds of in¬ 
ventors for the last fifty years; who have received the disinterested 
evidence of those most eminent and most skilled in the art of rapid 
filtration in this country, where the idea had its birth, as to how 
the Glover apparatus is to be constructed and operated in accord¬ 
ance with the specification and claim of patent to obtain rapid 
filtration; and who were led thus broadly to construe Glover’s 
patent as covering one of the inventions most important of modern 
times, and the most conducive to the public health and welfare, 
by said evidence and by the mass of evidence secured from the ar¬ 
chives of this and other countries — intend to take from the 
primary filter bed of Glover’s apparatus the putrefactive action 
or motive power that makes the apparatus operative, or enough of 
such action requisite to make the bed inoperative, when the patent 
discloses to the court that “ it is possible there may be some septic 
action in this filtering-bed receptacle” of Glover’s, although evi¬ 
dently the court do not see quite so much septic action in the bed 
as do experts who have devoted years to the study of the subject 
and the practice of the art of rapid filtration; and intend to give 
the credit of discovering the value of utilizing putrefactive action 
in obtaining rapid filtration to a syndicate of foreigners, who had 
ample time, after the “ Boston Herald ” published to the world 
a full and technical account of Glover’s discovery, invention and 
apparatus, — an American patent for which was then pending, 
and which was granted upon the strength of the disclosures made 



27 


in said “ Herald ” article, — to have become familiar with the 
facts set forth in said “ Herald ” article, and to have applied for 
a very defective English patent, partly but not fully and correctly 
stating Glover’s broad and correct ideas on the subject of rapid 
filtration as disclosed by his second patent, — is to assume that 
the court are in error; whereas we are firmly convinced that we 
shall eventually demonstrate to our friends in the Third Circuit 
that they and not the court are in error in regard to rapid fil¬ 
tration; for Glover’s apparatus for rapid filtration is a thing of 
life, an organism with a circulation, digestive functions, lungs, 
demanding fresh water, food and air for continued activity, the 
nearest approach by man to the creation of a structure endowed 
with life, and dependent upon life for its functional activity, even 
if the life seen dimly by the court and in very small quantities in 
the primar}^ bed of the apparatus is of the very lowest order in 
created nature, yet clearly differing from the life found by the 
court in the outside beds, the whole designed by inventor and 
recognized by the court as an apparatus to accomplish the rapid 
filtration of polluted water. 

To assume that the court find that the patent discloses Glover’s 
system of rapid filtration; and find that the Glover apparatus 
described in his patents can be made to operate, in the present 
state of the art, to obtain rapid filtration, and could have been so 
operated at Andover had Glover’s plans been accepted, and has so 
operated at Brentwood continuously from February, 1896, to the 
present time, to obtain rapid filtration; and find that the Brent¬ 
wood plant was the first plant in the world to use rapid filtration; 
and find that the Glover apparatus for rapid filtration is not for 
rapid filtration, and not for filtration of any kind, and for a thing 
of no known use, — is to assume that the court are in error either 
as to the rapid filtration or the manner of obtaining rapid filtration. 

We believe that the court are not in error; and that in construing 
the second Glover patent “ for a system of rapid filtration, com¬ 
prising two series of filter beds,” the court do not, and do not 
intend, to limit the method of operating the apparatus. 

We do not claim that the first Glover patent discloses the septic 
tank as defined by the court, or that the second Glover patent does 
so, but we do claim that both patents disclose to the public and to 
those skilled in the art of filtration not only septic action as defined 
by the court, but the most perfect conditions for bringing about 



28 


rapid putrefaction by the retention of the putrefying solid and the 
greater part of the putrefying offensive matter in beds charged 
with sewage, and having provision for removal of offensive gases 
emanating from putrefaction; and that Glover is entitled to the 
credit of discovering and applying this force in nature to cause and 
to effect rapid filtration. 

Conclusion. 

The court have construed our basic patent, the Glover second 
patent, for a system of rapid filtration. It is immaterial whether 
Glover was the inventor of the septic tank or embodied this tank 
in his patented apparatus; what is material is the finding of the 
court that the Glover apparatus is for a system of rapid filtration. 

As patent specifies, “ this invention has for its object to permit 
the filtration of sewage; ” and the secondary filter beds are 
“ adapted to complete the purification; ” the word “ filtration ” 
is used by the court as in the patent, as a synonym for purification. 

The purification of sewage, the removal of the offensive matter 
that pollutes and contaminates water, is one of the most impor¬ 
tant arts of the present century; and, provided that Glover does 
not disclose to the satisfaction of the court in his second patent 
just how the sewage is treated in the first compartment of his 
apparatus to bring about the final rapid filtration, Glover does dis¬ 
close to the court, and to the public, an apparatus to be used 
to obtain rapid filtration as a whole, — the only apparatus that 
has yet been invented to obtain rapid filtration. 

We believe and therefore assert that the court in construing the 
second Glover patent for a system of rapid filtration, comprising 
two series of filter beds, one in a ventilated structure and the other 
outside, while not intending to let the patent cover the combination 
of beds utilizing putrefactive action and beds utilizing oxidation 
for any rate of filtration, — the court did intend to construe or 
have construed the patent for covering the combination of the two 
natural forces when the same are utilized for rapid filtration; and 
do so construe it, not only for sewage, but for less contaminated 
water; in either of which lines we shall contend the discovery and 
invention were not anticipated. Lastly, that in construing the 
patent to cover primary beds in a ventilated structure, the court 
give us the monopoly of primary beds of such construction and use 
in combination with secondary oxidizing filter beds when the two 
are used to obtain rapid filtration. 


29 


Prophecy. 

As the corporations owning the patents for a system of rapid 
filtration have already expended over $50,000 to have their basic 
patent construed by the court of last resort in patent cases to cover 
their system, it may reasonably be predicted that, having gone so 
far, they may be relied upon to press their claims against individ¬ 
uals, corporations or municipalities using their system, granted 
by the government and sustained by the court, when such system 
is used without the proper license from owners. 

Change in Patent. 

Some time in the last century, when the Glover patents first 
came into our possession, we applied for permission to make one 
change, — to make what we believed were Glover’s intentions clearer 
to the public. We believed Glover intended midway inlet and outlet 
pipes for one form of his apparatus; and when he read the clause 
(pp. 1, 73-75), "the effluent enters said pipes only through the 
porous wall of the pipes, which may be of unglazed earthenware,” 
he understood the wall of the pipe acted like the wall of a conduit 
or canal to direct the flow of the effluent. We were informed by a 
senator of the United States that it would require an act of Con¬ 
gress to make the change; and that such an act was quite impossible 
to obtain. 

If an American patent disclosing a discovery and an invention 
cannot be reissued, it would seem just and legal that a foreign 
patent reissued in the United States should correspond in word 
and drawing, and even punctuation, with the original document. 

Cameron’s original English patent does not use the words “ septic 
tank,” or the words “ septic action,” — they were later discoveries 
than were disclosed by his first patent, which disclosed his invention 
of the bacteriological treatment of sewage in an air-tight tank, 
with submerged inlet and outlet pipes, since called a septic tank. 

When an absolutely new art or science is invented and discov¬ 
ered, it requires the coining of new words or a new meaning given 
to old words to describe it; and when it is an art or science of such 
magnitude that whole volumes and many of them have been exclu¬ 
sively devoted to it, it is a very remarkable fact that the attorneys, 
who obtained the granting of the patent, and who from their 
calling could not possibly have been skilled in the new art, should 


30 


have obtained from discoverer and inventor sufficient knowledge of 
the new art or science to disclose it to those skilled in the art 
to-day, to the court and to the public, in little over one page of the 
basic patent. 

Cameron Septic Tank Company. 

We desire to treat a brother corporation with all due considera¬ 
tion; but when our brother appropriates our apparatus, and puts 
a lid on and claims it as his own, because he informs the public 
that there is rot in our tank which any child would recognize, we 
object. 

On the assumption that the Cameron air-tight tank would ac¬ 
complish all that the inventor claimed in his patent, by merely 
closing the orifice of the Glover 1882 apparatus to prevent the ad¬ 
mission of air to aid in the removal of gases emanating from matter 
in the tank, it would have been an improvement upon the Glover 
1882 apparatus, and would have been entitled to protection; but, 
as a matter of fact, the Cameron tank is a retrogression in the art 
of sewage disposal to the 1882 glorified cesspool of M. Mouras, 
and does not equal in efficiency and safety of operation the Glover 
1882 apparatus for the disposal of the sewage of a town or city. 
About ten of Glover’s ventilated primary filter beds are in use in 
Great Britain to-day, estimated by capacity, to one “ septic tank; ” 
and the manner specified by Glover for the removal of suspended 
matter deposited in both the ventilated tanks and in the “ septic 
tanks ” is in common use in all parts of the world. 

It was bad enough to call the rot in our tank “the bacterio¬ 
logical treatment of sewage/’ but when our brother later attempts 
to call our primary -filter bed by the nasty and putrid name of 
“septic tank,” we object; and the court have sustained our objec¬ 
tions, and have established the law in the United States that the 
“ septic tank ” is what Cameron claimed it was, — an air-tight 
structure with submerged inlet and outlet pipes. 

When our brother advertises: “The Septic Tank System of 
Sewage Disposal (Patented) Patents the Process of Septic Treat¬ 
ment in Open and Closed Tanks,” we believe our brother is mis¬ 
leading the public in a very serious matter, and again we object. 
And we propose to object with the big stick of the law to alien in¬ 
terference with our corporate rights, granted by Congress. 

We confidently expect to administer the Hessian treatment to 
our foes, and to give their “septic treatment” to their claims, 
where only it is operative. 


31 


Business. 

Our business was established twenty-five years ago last month, 
when the discoverer and inventor, Amasa S. Glover, applied for his 
first patent. He had made a notable discovery; but he did not stop 
there; he progressed. He kept far ahead of his time. He experi¬ 
mented; he made new discoveries. His last and crowning achieve¬ 
ment was the discovery and invention of a system of rapid filtration, 
which was made just before he died, at the age of eighty years. 

We took up his life work soon after his death, and have endeav¬ 
ored to promote his inventions. We have invested, as did Mr. 
Glover during his life, many thousands of dollars to establish this 
business. 

It is true that we might have gone to the court with the patents 
alone, and have claimed and proved our right to the monopoly; 
but, as this invention of Glover’s involves an engineering proposi¬ 
tion, we deemed it wisest to prove to the engineering profession, 
outside of the patent, that Glover was entitled to the credit and 
rewards of the discovery, while making out our case for the court. 

An engineering proposition is like a problem in mathematics, 
and can be demonstrated; and when it is demonstrated to the satis¬ 
faction of some of the most prominent civil engineers of the United 
States, it becomes with the engineering profession of the whole 
world an established fact. 

Our System of Bapid Filtration. 

Consider, if you please, what our system of rapid filtration will 
do for your own home or for your city. 

It will receive the waste organic matter and so reduce its bulk 
that it may be composted without causing offense, and completely 
dispose of the offensive matter, emitting a sterilized effluent. It 
separates, arrests and retains the solid and offensive matter and 
utilizes the same to produce filtration and purification in the most 
rapid, natural and inexpensive way ever dreamed of, and in a way 
so complete that it has no rival. It is more effective than slow 
filtration; for no pathogenic germs ever escape after once entering 
the apparatus. In time it is bound to eliminate such germs from 
the community where the system is in use. It gives the community 
the boon of perfect drinking water, rapidly, perfectly and inexpen¬ 
sively filtered and purified. 


32 


This system of rapid filtration has been recently adopted by the 
great city of London and many other large cities in Great Britain, 
by several American cities, and is coming into general use. 

We solicit your business, and the business of your community or 
city. We are prepared to advise you how to rapidly filter water or 
sewage, how to construct works for rapid filtration, to supervise 
construction, to make the works automatic in action, and, as far 
as possible, fool-proof, and built to render efficient service, — for a 
reasonable compensation in the form of a royalty. 

We specially ask the co-operation of the press to give publicity to 
what our system of rapid filtration will do for a community. 

We ask the co-operation of civil and sanitary engineers and of 
the State and local health authorities in promoting our discovery 
and invention for the public good. 

We ask investigation by city and town officials as to the merits 
of the system protected by our patent as construed by the court. 

Parties using our apparatus without license from us are hereby 
warned. Correspondence solicited. 

That due weight may be given to the statements hereinbefore 
made by corporations, we have authorized our chief executive offi¬ 
cer, a man skilled in the art or science to which the subjects 
treated appertain, to appear before a justice and swear that, to the 
best of his knowledge and belief, the above statements are the truth, 
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and are in no way 
intended to deceive or to mislead the public. 

THE AMERICAN WATER PURIFICATION COMPANY, 

By David H. Judd, Treasurer. 

THE AMERICAN SEWAGE DISPOSAL COMPANY OF BOSTON, 

By John N. McClintock, President and General Manager. 

Office, 643 Old South Building, Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 

JOHN N. McCLINTOCK. 


State of Massachusetts, County of Suffolk, ss. 

On this twelfth day of November, 1906, personally appeared 
before me, a notary public, John N. McClintock, who, being duly 
sworn according to law, deposes and says that the statements set 
forth as above are true. 

JOSEPH W. BARTLETT. 

(seal.) 


33 


STATEMENT AS TO FACTS IN EVIDENCE, ANI) 
EXPLANATION. 


It may be interesting to those skilled in the art of rapid filtration, 
and to the public, to have a view of the evidence that was laid 
before the court, which led the court to construe the second Glover 
patent broadly for a system of rapid filtration, instead of con¬ 
struing it to cover some particular part of the apparatus or some 
particular process going on in said part. 

It appears in evidence that in January, 1895, the Glover Sanitary 
Sewerage Company was incorporated, and advertised the company 
as controlling the Glover patents, the one then issued disclosing 
how to dispose of municipal sludge, and the one to be issued, for 
rapid filtration. Glover capitalized his ideas in the form of a 
stock company; and thereafterwards the ideas belonged to him 
only as a stockholder in said company. The stock of the company 
was issued to Glover in return for his first patent and his ideas 
on the subject that were to be incorporated in his second patent, 
which the company stated they controlled, and which was trans¬ 
ferred to the company very soon after it was issued. Glover’s ideas 
and intentions at the time he transferred them to a corporation is a 
matter of considerable importance, for what Glover transferred to 
the Glover Sanitary Sewerage Company in January, 1895, by due 
and legal transfer, became the property of the American Sewage 
Disposal Company of Boston, and of the American Water Purifi¬ 
cation Company, at a later date. 

Soon after incorporation the company issued to the public a 
statement; and as nearly all the stock belonged to Glover at the 
time of publication, the statement made by the company may be 
legally construed as emanating from Glover. In said statement 
Glover expressed himself clearly and fully upon the subject of his 
system of rapid filtration, as follows: — 



34 


Glover’s Intentions. 

We propose, in this circular, to make plain our plans and methods of 
the disposal of sewerage by intermittent filtration under the patents 
controlled by the Glover Sanitary Sewerage Company. . . . 

With the aid of our main house or sheds, which contain the tanks and 
filter beds, we are enabled to turn water pure, or so nearly so into the 
stream which carries it off that it in no way interferes with its purity 
or endangers its sanitary condition. The small amount of solids that 
remain after going through our process will be quickly carried away for 
their value as a fertilizer. ... We put a portion, or, under certain 
conditions, all of the filter beds under cover. . . . “ The process of puri¬ 
fication by intermittent filtration consists of intermingling the sewage 
in the pores of the filtering material with sufficient air for a sufficient 
time in the presence of micro-organisms which quickly establish them¬ 
selves [there]. Sewage filters resemble [complex] living organisms, in 
that the ventilation and respiration must be maintained, otherwise 
the[ir] functions are interrupted and their lives as filters come to an 
end.” 1 

The foregoing remarks [by Mr. George W. Fuller, the biologist] are 
significant, as with our process and system of intermittent filtration 
under cover, with the currents of air passing in and over the filter beds, 
and escaping, after they have performed their work and become loaded 
with impurities, through the chimney at a high elevation — that is, 
taking in the heavy currents of pure air and forcing it out when im¬ 
pure — it becomes in reality a living organism. 

It will be seen from above quotation that the inventor recognized 
in his system of rapid filtration “ a living organism,” a creature 
which he claimed as his own creation, a thing of life, the offspring 
of his brain. 

Glover, the discoverer and inventor, the original investigator and 
scientist, started in life as a cabinetmaker, and from his researches 
in the art and science of rapid filtration he may well be called “ the 
learned cabinetmaker-.” From early associations in his trade a 
plan or drawing had special significance to him, and he used plans 
and drawings freely to disclose his advanced ideas to the public, 
both in his first and second patents, and in the document under 
consideration. Fig. 9 shows how Glover intended his apparatus to 
be constructed when a portion of the filter beds were under cover. 


1 Quotation corrected. 





35 


We herewith present a number of cuts illustrating the different stages 
of disposal. 

This system, which is broadly covered by United States letters patent 
[No. 258744], consists in a combination of a series of tanks; a sewer 
main or pipe arranged to discharge sewage matter into the first tank of 
the series, from which said matter flows successively through the other 
tanks; a building or inclosure over said tanks, having an inclined roof 
forming a flue, having an opening at its lower end for the admission of 

1 

i 



Fig. 9. —Interior, showing Sewage Beds under Cover. 


external air; and a chimney connected to the upper end of said roof or 
flue, said chimney, flue and opening causing a current of air to pass 
over the series of tanks to the chimney, and carry with it from the 
building all the gases and odors arising from the matter in the tanks. 

The first tank is for the reception and retention of the “ sewer¬ 
age ” or sewage; and when the tank has been charged with sewage, 
the sewage flows thence into the second tank of the series, which is 
shown in Fig. 10. 

Here we have the filtering material resting on a liquid-tight 
bottom, with nnderdrains, shown with the sewage standing over 
the filtering material, so that no air can enter the filter. Its con¬ 
struction clearly indicates its purpose and use in Glover’s system of 
rapid filtration to the way-faring man, as well as to the expert; 
the sewage must either flow over the filtering material or through 
the filtering material. If the sewage flows over the filtering ma¬ 
terial the elaborate construction can be of no possible use as a filter, 
because it is not used as a filter. Moreover, with sewage standing 

















36 


over the filter bed, it cannot act as an oxidizing filter bed. With 
the sewage flowing through the bed it is the anaerobic filter, and 
will permit the sewage that escapes from the first tank to flow 



Fig. 10.—Showing Sections of Sewage Beds. 
Each wing has a series of tanks F, of any desired number. 


through the filtering material at the rate of many million gallons 
per acre per day, — a million gallons representing the downward 
flow of 40 inches. 

There is no provision for the escape of the sewage from the first 
tank except through the second tank of the series; and the solid 
matter deposited in the first tank must be removed from time to 
time by way of the door communicating with the upper side of the 
tank. Nothing would be deposited in the second tank, which is an 

































37 


anaerobic filter through which the sewage flowing from the first 
tank passes to the third tank of the series. 

It will be noted that this third tank holds “ clear water/’ — such 
as the tank would naturally hold if the sewage had been subjected 
to the treatment of Glover’s process in the first and second tank of 
Gloverfs apparatus; and here in the third tank takes place a very 
important part of Glover’s system of rapid filtration,— the sedi¬ 
mentation following anaerobic treatment, or what is called “ our 
process,” in Glover’s system of rapid filtration. So far Glover had 
designed the apparatus for rapid filtration before March, 1895. The 
sewage flowing through the first tank of the series, and depositing 
therein the bulk of the suspended matter by spontaneous subsidence, 
passes to the second bed, and down through the suitable kind of 
filtering material to the underdrains; thence to the third tank of 
clear water for sedimentation, before receiving subsequent treatment 
by “ oxidizing bacterial action on open-air sewage sand filters.” 

Glover said: “ We put a portion, or, under certain conditions, all 
of the filter beds under cover.” 



This cut, like the drawings of patent No. 258744, shows all the 
beds or tanks under cover; as does the left-hand part of the struc¬ 
ture shown in Fig. 9. 

We come now to the consideration of these secondary filter beds 
for oxidizing bacterial action, whether they are located in the gas- 
removing structure, as Glover explains that they may be, or located 
outside; they are certainly outside of the first three tanks of the 
series wherein anaerobic action, or what is called “ our process,” 



















38 


is clearly indicated, because no other action is possible therein. 
Note what Glover said: “ With our process and system of intermit¬ 
tent filtration under cover ... it becomes in reality a living organ¬ 
ism.” 

There cannot be intermittent filtration in the first, second or third 
tank of the series, the last designed for holding clear water; these 
three tanks were evidently intended for what Glover called his 
process. Intermittent filtration must be beyond the first three tanks. 

The clear water from the third tank comes to the two tanks in¬ 
tended for intermittent filtration, whether located inside or outside 
the structure. 

It is interesting to note in how many ways these two oxidizing 
filtering beds, located inside the structure, can be used to advan¬ 
tage ; for instance, the clear water in doses may be applied first to 
one bed and then to the other, a heavy current of air being drawn 
in or through the filter, as Glover suggested; or the beds may be 
used as trickling filters, the purification increased by the heavy cur¬ 
rent of air drawn through the filter; or they may be used as con¬ 
tact bacteria beds, one filling up slowly while the other is aerating 
by the heavy current of air drawn through it. Located outside the 
structure, they were intended for oxidizing bacterial action, as found 
by the court. 

Fortunately we are not dependent for our knowledge as to how 
Glover’s apparatus, constructed as above specified, is to be used, 
from its construction; because Glover 5 s friend and pupil explained 
the use intended by Glover to the society of which he is an honored 
member, as follows: — 

The speaker can testify that Mr. Glover did claim an absolute dis¬ 
appearance of all solids, either in the central tank of the system or the 
subsequent filters grouped around the tank. He recognized the neces¬ 
sity of oxidation, and provided for a kind of aeration of the filters, and 
also for periods of dosing and rest. ... The patent has long since ex¬ 
pired, but there are scores of men living who will testify that Mr. 
Glover discovered the bacterial system of purification. ... 1 

As Glover’s 1882 apparatus was the first apparatus ever designed 
to dispose of or get rid of municipal sludge, so this 1895 apparatus 
was the first, and is the most perfect ever designed, to effect rapid 
and complete purification, as found by the court. 

1 Transactions American Society of Civil Engineers, Yol. XLYI (1901), p. 474. 





39 


Patenting an Organism. 

Just think for a moment how difficult it is to specify in a patent 
just what makes this discovery and invention of Glover's valuable 
and useful in the art of rapid filtration; it is like specifying a 
baby or a dog or a fish, or anything else that has life. 

This organism of Glover's has life; the life in the tanks was dis¬ 
covered by Pasteur several years before Glover recognized the value 
and utility of the life in disposing of municipal sludge; and life in 
such tanks was a matter of common knowledge in 1882, as was the 
presence of rot, which Pasteur had announced to the world was a 
life action. Life action in the secondary beds was recognized by 
Warrington in 1882, and that also was a matter of common knowl¬ 
edge in 1895. In selecting the names of primary and secondary 
filter beds for the two parts of his apparatus to obtain rapid filtra¬ 
tion, Glover in effect announced that the action therein was a life 
action; and he called the action in his inside tanks or filter beds 
“ primary filtration," and the action in his outer beds “ secondary 
treatment," — showing that he recognized a difference between 
the two. 

As a matter of fact, it makes no difference whether the rot in 
Glover’s tanks is a life action or chemical process. Glover called 
his apparatus “ a living organism" in his circular; but he hesi¬ 
tated to do so in his patent; for he did not know, and no man living 
knows to-day, how the life cells operate in making the tanks opera¬ 
tive. 

Glover submitted this idea, which he had already transferred to 
a corporation, to the firm of patent solicitors who had secured for 
him his first patent for an apparatus for the disposal of municipal 
sludge, and asked them to secure a patent for the. same, expressed 
in the terse language insisted on by the Patent Office. 

Glover's Apparatus. 

It is well to remember just what the apparatus to be patented is, 
how it is constructed and what it is to accomplish. It consists of 
the five tanks of the Glover 1882 apparatus. In the first tank there 
is to be no change in construction and use, as is manifestly evident; 
it is to be charged with sewage, suspended matter is to be deposited 
and removed when necessary, and the sewage is to overflow into 
the second tank of the series. The sewage is to flow through the 


40 


second tank of the series and through suitable filtering material 
placed therein, or “wholly through filtering material.” The third 
tank is for the storage of the clear water and for sedimentation. 
The fourth and fifth tanks are for the well-known oxidizing bac¬ 
terial action in open-air sewage sand filters, in which or through 
which heavy or strong currents of air are to be drawn, and thence 
pass over the other tanks of the series for the removal of gases 
emanating therefrom. Glover said these oxidizing beds may be 
within the structure or outside. 

Now, what is there to patent about this apparatus, this living 
organism of Glover’s? There are the three tanks in the ventilated, 
gas-removing structure to avail of his process, and the two tanks 
inside or outside of structure to avail of intermittent filtration, the 
five forming a unit, of which purification works require several, for 
obvious reasons. 

In the first place he selects the name for the parts and the name 
for the processes in rapid water purification going on therein. He 
is bound to lop off the non-essentials of the apparatus he is seeking 
to obtain a patent for, such as gates and valves, and such as the 
third tank for the reception and storage of clear water, thus reducing 
his tanks in structure to two. The second tank holds the filtering 
material through which the effluent of the first tank is to escape ; 
and as that may be placed in the first tank to accomplish its func¬ 
tions, the second tank is omitted; and Glover applied for and 
received a patent for a primary filter bed in a ventilated structure, 
said bed being constructed to separate, arrest and retain the solid 
and the greater part of the offensive matter, and to permit the 
escape of the clarified and partially purified effluent wholly through 
filtering material, or through proper construction to accomplish the 
same end, to one secondary filter bed in the open air, the whole 
forming a unit. 

Septic Action. 

It is immaterial in this connection just what Glover legally dis¬ 
closed in his first patent. What is important is what he thought 
he disclosed. 

It is evident that he thought he disclosed just what he said in his 
first patent he did disclose: — 

This invention has for its object to enable sewage matter to be dis¬ 
posed of without danger of contaminating the soil by matter in sus¬ 
pension, or the air by gases and odors. 


41 


The question of the meaning of the invention depends upon the 
meaning of the word “ dispose.” Glover was not to dispose of the 
sewage; but he invented “ an apparatus for the disposal of sew¬ 
age ; ” Glover could dispose of his money, so the apparatus was to 
dispose of the sewage in the only way that an apparatus could dis¬ 
pose of it, — by getting rid of it. 

Glover had disclosed to his countrymen by his first patent how 
an apparatus should be constructed and used to dispose of the 
sewage or sludge, or it is proper to presume that he thought he had 
disclosed the process because he said so in his patent, and the Glover 
Sanitary Sewerage Company claimed it as “ our process ” in the 
early part of 1895. Glover undoubtedly felt at liberty to incor¬ 
porate a process that he claimed to have discovered in his later 
system of rapid filtration. Our right to the process dates back to 
Glover’s right, or to 1882. 

From the above-quoted evidence as to Glover’s ideas and inten¬ 
tions at the time he disposed of his ideas to a corporation it is 
evident that he intended what he said he intended; or he was 
disposing of a “ gold brick ” to some of the most astute business 
men of New England. He intended intermittent filtration in the 
last two tanks of his series of five, — in the usual way if the beds 
were located outside the structure; aided by a heavy current of air 
in or through the filter bed if the filters were in the structure, the 
heavy current of air passing over the other beds of the series and 
carrying away the gases emanating from the matter in the other 
beds. One would not reasonably expect gases to arise from the tank 
charged with clear water, and very little gas from the anaerobic 
filter; consequently what gases were to arise would be expected to 
arise from the “ sewerage ” retained in the first tank, wherein the 
suspended matter of the sewage was to be disposed of, in part. 

This direct, positive and documentary evidence as to Glover’s 
ideas and intentions as to how his system of rapid filtration was to 
operate must have convinced the court that Glover intended his 
apparatus to operate in the manner he informed the public it was 
to operate, more especially, also, because it is the only way the 
apparatus can operate. 


42 


BOSTON “ HERALD ” ARTICLE OF OCT. 4, 1895. 

Sewer Filtration" System. 1 

The attitude of the State Board of Health toward the Glover filtration 
system of purifying sewage has reached an important and interesting 
stage. Some time next week it will announce whether or not it approves, 
for general adaptation to towns and cities, of this method. . . . 

The interests of those who are concerned most closely with the system 
are being looked after by John N. McClintock, civil engineer, of this 
city. He has . . . studied the problem of sewage disposal extensively, 
both in this country and abroad. . . . 

The experiment at Lawrence most nearly in line with the system pro¬ 
posed for Andover and Danvers was with a filter bed containing 60 
inches in depth of sand. It received the supernatant liquid from sewage 
which had been allowed to settle four hours. . . . 

The enclosed filter beds in the system recommended for Andover pro¬ 
vide 1^2 square yards of filtering surface for 1,000 gallons of sewage 
daily. The experiments at Lawrence do not cover this condition. . . . 

Mr. McClintock said yesterday 2 to a Herald man: — 

“ The Glover system provides tanks for sedimentation, which may be 
used at any time for chemical precipitation, with provision for drawing 
off the clear water collected in the tanks upon a small filter bed, fol¬ 
lowed by the sludge, which, after drainage, can be composted with ashes, 
loam or sand, and removed. It provides a filter bed, through which the 
sewage, deprived of much of its sludge , is allowed to pass at the rate of 
1,000 gallons per square yard per day by intermittent filtration. It pro¬ 
vides for the working of this system throughout the year by covering the 
filter beds with a roof, and the ventilation of the sewage by a forced 
draught. 

“ The filter beds, being protected by a building, can be cared for and 
renewed at all seasons, and will not become a nuisance in any neigh¬ 
borhood. 

“ The partially purified and wholly clarified effluent from the covered 
filter beds is carried to an out-of-doors filter, where it is distributed by a 
series of overdrains, thoroughly ventilated, under a cover of loam. 
These out-of-door filter beds are thoroughly underdrained, and provide 
for the further purification of the sewage, allowing an acre for the puri¬ 
fication of 100,000 gallons of sewage daily. 


1 Article condensed. 

* Ten days after the second Glover patent was applied for. 



43 


“ After the sewage has been clarified by sedimentation in the tanks, 
and purified by rapid, intermittent filtration through the first filter beds, 
so much of the impurities will be found to have been removed that an 
acre will probably purify from 300,000 to 500,000 gallons daily. 

“ What sewage passes through a 5-foot filter bed will not clog the over¬ 
drains. If it should clog the overdrains in the course of years, new 
overdrains could be laid at a trifling expense. If it was found that 
overdrains made of inverted troughs of hemlock boards lasted many 
years, the cost would be a mere trifle. 

“ If this system applies to the sewage disposal of a farmhouse, a 
village or a small town, it applies to a city of the size of New Orleans, 
Boston, Chicago or New York. 

“ Boston is now pumping the foul stuff, and pouring it out in front of 
her front door at the mouth of the harbor, or at Moon Island, making 
of the harbor a collecting tank. ... In the course of the coming years, 
what is now a beautiful expanse of water will be a vast marsh, if the 
present system is maintained. . . . 

u Sewage can be so treated that it becomes as pure as spring 
water. . . . 

“ The sewage [sludge] can be variously treated and disposed of.” 

Comments. 

Tanks which may be used for chemical precipitation hold four 
hours’ flow of the sewage. The six tanks in the last Andover plan, 
referred to in “ Herald ” article, held twenty-four hours’ flow. 

The only improvement on the Glover apparatus for rapid filtration 
disclosed by the second Glover patent and described in the “ Herald ” 
article is the automatic action to control the flow of the effluent of 
the tanks to obtain intermittent filtration in the secondary beds; 
and we have secured patents for the only improvement. 

At the time the above information as to the Glover system of 
rapid filtration was given to the “ Herald ” and to the public, Mr. 
McClintock was the executive head and representative of the cor¬ 
poration controlling the Glover patents, and spoke officially, as he 
had the right to do. 

The “ Herald ” article, Glover’s circular, and the second Glover 
patent may have no special meaning to the barbarian; but to one 
skilled in the art of rapid filtration or any kind of filtration every 
word is weighty with meaning, definite and certain, and clearly 
disclosing the invention covered by the patent, as the law provides; 
and not to understand how the second Glover patent discloses rapid 
filtration ranks one as unskilled in the art. 


44 


Property Interests. 

The American Sewage Disposal Company of Boston, upon which 
has fallen the burden of establishing the validity and scope of the 
Glover patents, is a modest little corporation, as corporations go in 
these days of grand combinations of vested interests, but it is as 
much entitled to protection by the strong arm of the law as if it 
represented the investment of hundreds nf millions of dollars. 

The number of individuals forming the corporation is about 100, 
and the average investment is about $1,000 each. This investment 
represents legally the heads of 20 families, and is entitled to the 
same protection as if the lives of 20 American citizens were in¬ 
volved. 

We did not claim to be able to wring gold from the water of the 
ocean; but we did claim to be able to separate fresh water from 
organic matter which contaminated it; and to be able and willing 
to do the world good service, for a reasonable compensation in the 
form of a royalty. 

We expended the money of the corporation wisely, under advice 
of learned counsel, and built up the edifice of our case stone by stone 
from a sure foundation, until it became a noble structure, proof 
against adverse winds. 

We claim as our property the right to construct and use our 
apparatus to obtain rapid filtration, the exclusive right to so use it, 
and the monopoly of the right to construct and use it to obtain 
rapid filtration. We claim that the court, in construing our patent 
for a system of rapid filtration, confirm our rights to the property 
in the monopoly granted by the government as a reward to the dis¬ 
coverer and inventor. 

This property of ours is the right to do good, like the degree of 
the doctor, the license of the druggist, the ordination of the minister, 
or the union card of the craftsman. As was feelingly said at a meet¬ 
ing of the American Society of Civil Engineers, by Glover’s friend 
and pupil, it will prevent “ the evil of allowing fake systems to dem¬ 
onstrate their inefficiency at public expense, in preference to taking 
sound professional advice.” It gives us the right to prescribe our 
remedy where civic ailment is in the line of our specialty, and where 
broad irrigation or intermittent filtration is out of the question, and 
chemical precipitation is too burdensome, troublesome and offensive. 


45 


Finding of Court. 

As a matter of course we knew what Glover’s apparatus was, how 
it was to be constructed, how it was to operate, and what it was to 
accomplish, but we did not know, until we were informed by the 
court, how the court would consider the invention as a whole, 
whether or not it was patentable under the patent law, or what 
part, if any, was protected by the patent. 

We thought we knew that the primary filter beds in their func¬ 
tions had been disclosed by an earlier patent of Glover’s, excepting 
the filtering material; we also had the opinion of eminent legal and 
scientific authority that the roof over the primary filter bed was not 
legally or scientifically essential; we knew that the value of our 
apparatus depended upon a tank charged with polluted water, con¬ 
structed to accomplish certain results, permitting the effluent to 
escape clarified and partially purified to receive subsequent rapid 
purification upon outside filter beds; and we do not claim that the 
discovery and invention disclosed by the Glover second patent is a 
process that Glover had recognized and utilized many years before, 
and that he thought he had disclosed to the public in his first 
patent. We are satisfied that the court, in construing our patent 
for a system of rapid filtration, construe it in the very broadest 
way possible to cover a really great and important invention. 

In view of the evidence submitted to the court, chiefly docu¬ 
mentary and incontrovertible, as to Glover’s struggles with his 
great idea, from its inception in 1875 until its perfection in his 
grand system of rapid filtration in 1895, it is impossible to under¬ 
stand how the court could have done otherwise than they did in 
finding that the patent discloses the invention. 

Patent Law. 

When the law of Congress is to the effect that to receive a patent 
the inventor must disclose his invention to those skilled in the art, 
and the court construe a patent, it is obvious that the patent law 
is based upon the old common law, founded on justice, equit} r , com¬ 
mon sense and precedents, where the highest authority is vested in 
the court. 

By the common law of England the highest authority was vested 
in the king; and the king could do no wrong. 

As the highest authority in patent causes is vested in the court, 


46 


and as by common law the court can do no wrong, and as the court 
have found that our second Glover patent is for a system of rapid 
filtration, comprising two series of filter beds, one in a ventilated 
structure and the other outside, and as the law of nature enacted 
in the beginning is well established that rapid filtration is caused 
only by Glover’s apparatus used in the way specified by Glover’s 
second patent, the court must have intended to have found that the 
rapid filtration disclosed by the second Glover patent is due to the 
continuous flow or rot in Glover’s primary filter bed. 

If the court would inform us how we are to get rapid filtration by 
the Glover apparatus except by continuous flow,. or septic action, 
or rot, in the primary filter bed, or if there is any man living in this 
wide world of ours of such deep learning and scientific attainment 
as to be able to inform us, the information would be of great value 
to us; but until we are so informed we are bound to believe that the 
court in awarding to us a system of rapid filtration, as disclosed by 
our patent, do so with a full knowledge of the fact that rapid filtra¬ 
tion, the effect, is due to the anaerobic action or rot in our primary 
filter bed, which is the cause. 

Laws of Nature. 

A most careful study of the evidence and exhibits in the case 
shows no misrepresentation to the court as to the natural laws 
involved in the case, and nothing as to Glover’s intentions at any 
time that is material in the suit and that would adversely affect our 
case; therefore it is a logical deduction that the court understood 
the natural laws involved in the operation of Glover’s apparatus 
when they found that the second patent is for a system of rapid 
filtration. 

It is a difficult matter to explain why Glover’s apparatus may 
operate sixteen hundred times more rapidly than an oxidizing filter 
of the same size, and sixteen thousand times more rapidly as an 
anaerobic filter than as an aerobic filter (because as the latter it 
can dispose of only what sewage would evaporate), for the reason 
that the action that makes the rapid filtration possible is life action, 
and as hard to explain as the life action in the human hand or eye; 
with life it is a very efficient organism; without life (and the 
proper kind of life, and the only life it will sustain, and the life 
that comes naturally to it in the sewage which it is to purify) it is 
like a dead hand or a dead eye. 


47 


It is also a difficult matter to explain why the secondary beds 
will purify the effluent of the primary bed ten times more rapidly 
than Glover suggested as possible in 1895, and a hundred times 
more rapidly than the Massachusetts State Board of Health thought 
possible in 1895; this is also due to the life action in the primary 
bed. 

Clearness of Patent. 

There is not one word of the second Glover patent that has not a 
definite meaning applying to his system of rapid filtration and ap¬ 
plying to no other possible construction. 

It is well to bear in mind that a patent, while disclosing a new 
art or science, like that of rapid filtration for example, is not a 
treatise on the new art or science; its intent is to disclose to those 
having need of the new art or science the way to construct and use 
the apparatus specified in the patent to avail of the new invention. 
In the case of rapid filtration the public at large are deeply inter¬ 
ested in the new science, for the reason that it applies not only to 
the sanitation of the largest cit)', but of the isolated house on the 
prairie or the hillside. 

It is seen at a glance that our system of rapid filtration applies 
not only to the purification of the water carrying off the organic 
waste matter of the household, but also to the rapid purification of 
the water intended for domestic use by the family. 

It is a very simple apparatus to construct; any man or boy of good 
common sense can build one from the specification of the patent; 
and it is operative within a very wide range of capacity, and won¬ 
derfully effective on almost any scale; yet why Glovers apparatus 
will do what Glover officially said it would do is as much a mystery 
to the most learned scientist as it is to the most ignorant savage. 

Glover’s ideas as to oxidizing bacterial action in the open-air 
sewage sand filters is clearly expressed in his circular, and as a 
matter of fact had been of common knowledge for many years in 
all parts of the world; and to apply Glover’s ideas on the subject, 
which were of common knowledge, to the rapid filtration of the 
partially purified effluent of his cesspool converted into a primary 
filter bed, it only becomes necessary to underdrain and ventilate a 
small amount of filtering material to receive the effluent. If the 
air is drawn in and through this filtering material of the secondary 
bed and passes over the primary filter bed to the vent or chimney 
suggested by Glover in his circular and in his patent, the capacity 


48 


of the filtering material for the purification of the effluent of the 
primary bed would be increased in ratio to the force of the draught. 

We do not claim that the second Glover patent discloses how the 
secondary beds for oxidizing bacterial action are constructed, and 
the court found that that was not essential; but we do claim, and 
the court have sustained our claim, that the patent discloses the 
system of rapid filtration so fully and clearly that one need not be 
skilled in the art to avail of the invention. 

The inventor was not bound to convince the man or boy that his 
apparatus would operate. It is in evidence that the Glover system 
was adjudged “ thoroughly impracticable 99 on several occasions, 
without even an investigation, so contrary did it appear to common 
sense. Glover could only point out the way to rapidly purify water; 
but he could not force the authorities to adopt his way, or even to 
permit him to put his system in operation in his native State. 

In discovering and inventing a system of rapid filtration Glover 
placed himself in the front rank of those discoverers who have aided 
humanity in the onward progress from barbarism to civilization, and 
opened up a new art or science of inestimable value and benefit to 
his fellow man of all races and of all lands, — an invention that is 
bound to revolutionize sanitary conditions of the whole world for all 
time. 

THE AMERICAN SEWAGE DISPOSAL COMPANY OF BOSTON, 

By John N. McClintock, President and General Manager . 

JOHN N. McCLINTOCK. 


State of Massachusetts, County of Suffolk, ss. 

On this twenty-fourth day of December, 1906, personally appeared before me, a 
notary public, John N. McClintock, who, being duly sworn according to law, de¬ 
poses and says that the statements set forth as above are true. 

[seal] Arthur Thad Smith. 


Advertisement. 

The American Sewage Disposal Company of Boston will undertake 
to construct for individuals, corporations or municipalities works em¬ 
bodying its system of rapid filtration in any part of the world. 

Office, 643 Old South Building, Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 



49 


PERSONAL PRIVILEGE. 


A copyright is granted to the author of a book with the consent 
and approval of all men. There is no prejudice against the copy¬ 
right. 

The same authority that grants the copyright grants the patent; 
but, although the principle is the same, there is a prejudice against 
the patent and the inventor. The copyright is safeguarded by the 
law as an almost sacred property right; whereas the patent and the 
patentee are differently treated. 

Amasa S. Glover made a great and important discovery about 
1880, and received a patent for his invention; he perfected his in¬ 
vention in 1895, and received a new patent; and directly and in¬ 
directly it has cost about $100,000 to perfect his title to the inven¬ 
tion which the court find his second patent discloses. 

The court state: “ The issue is narrowed down to the proposi¬ 
tion : Are what are termed ‘ primary filter beds 9 in the patent in 
fact septic tanks ? ” 

With the understanding that the term “ septic tank 99 means the 
proper conditions for the development of septic action, the answer 
is plain: if the Glover apparatus is for rapid filtration, the primary 
filter beds are septic tanks, as the term is commonly understood. 
The Glover primary filter beds cannot possibly be used for any¬ 
thing save putrefactive action. 

The only evidence in the case that the primary filter beds of 
the patent were not designed for putrefactive action was given by 
Frank Herbert Snow, an alleged civil engineer. Mr. Snow read 
into the patent the optional settling tank; ignored the form of 
beds with porous pipes disposed upon water-tight concrete bot¬ 
toms; read out of the patent the submerged outlet pipes and the 
essential feature of the apparatus specified by the patent, — that 
the primary filter beds were to be charged with sewage; and testi¬ 
fied, not that the primary beds could be used for the oxidizing 



50 


process, which is an impossibility, but that the inventor intended 
to so use them. 

Both of us knew Glover intimately, — knew all about his inven¬ 
tion and discovery, and what his patents disclose to experts; and 
both aided him in preparing plans. 

Snow knew perfectly what Glover’s ideas were, and bore witness 
to the same, as shown by the quotation from an address made by 
Snow, printed on page 38, ante. 

If Glover intended to use the primary beds of the patent for 
oxidation, he had no knowledge of the art of filtration, no skill 
in the art, no common sense, and was not of sound mind. 

New England history, which I have done my part to preserve, 
shows that my ancestors were honorable men and women, including 
ministers and magistrates of early colonial days, who would have 
scorned a lie and a liar. I certainly did not inherit a tendency to 
be untruthful. 

I was brought up from childhood to believe that it was not only 
mean to lie, but that it was dishonorable. I did not learn to lie 
at home. 

I did not learn to lie at Bowdoin College, under the instruction 
of Leonard Wood, Samuel Harris, professors Upham, Smythe, 
Packard, Young, Sewall or Chamberlain, as a student; or as in¬ 
structor. 

I did not learn to lie during my eight years’ service in the 
Coast Survey, under Pierce, Whiting, Mitchell, Boutelle, Hosmer, 
Perkins or Anderson, or when I was in charge of my own party. 
In that corps it was considered dishonorable for an officer to lie. 

During the next twenty years, or until I met Glover, in the 
practice of my profession I was employed by State, county and 
municipal authorities, corporations and individuals, in a great 
variety of engineering enterprises, where my judgment and in¬ 
tegrity were relied upon by those employing me, and depended 
upon in court cases usually by counsel of opposing party. 

During the most of these twenty years I lived in New Hampshire, 
and I counted as my personal friends most of the leading men 
of that State for a generation, including the chief justice, many 
of the governors, United States senators, judges, congressmen, 
bibliophiles, and men eminent in every walk of life; and I believe 
that my friends, living or dead, would rely upon my word. I 
certainly did not learn to lie from my intercourse with such men. 


51 


1 not only found honesty the best policy, but the only policy for 
a civil engineer; for it is just as impolitic for a civil engineer to 
lie as it is for an accountant to add up a column of figures and 
give a false result, — he is morally sure to be found out. 

I was introduced to Mr. Glover in the early summer of 1895. 

I had commenced to study the effect of sewage upon rivers and 
harbors with Assistant Henry Mitchell of the United States Coast 
Survey in 1867; and I was prepared by study and observation to 
appreciate the importance and magnitude of Glover’s discovery 
and invention, when it was disclosed to me by the inventor. 

Glover explained to me, the first time I met him, his system 
of rapid filtration, and I understood it perfectly, — just as well 
as I do to-day, — and how it operates. He told me how to build 
and use his apparatus in order to obtain rapid filtration; and I 
am sure he understood what he was talking about. 

Snow and I differed in our testimony as to how Glover intended 
his apparatus to operate to obtain rapid filtration. My evidence 
was corroborated by that of over a score of disinterested witnesses, 
including judges, civil engineers, city engineers, mayors of cities, 
bank presidents and treasurers and reputable citizens, who in some 
cases recalled years after the exact words by which Glover had ex¬ 
plained to them his discovery and invention. Every word of my 
evidence was also sustained by documentary evidence, public 
records, newspaper clippings, maps and plans. 

Snow testified in effect that Glover made the discovery and 
invention, but that in applying for his second patent Glover 
abandoned his great invention, and attempted to secure a patent 
for an absurdity; and Snow’s evidence stands unsupported, unless 
the honorable counsel who obtained for Glover both of his patents 
intended to betray the interests of their client. Their letter to the 
patent office quoted my remarks to the “ Boston Herald ” reporter 
as to Glover’s intentions, and gave me and the article as their 
authority for their statements; and their meaning cannot be per¬ 
verted or misconstrued by an expert, save maliciously and without 
due regard to the value of sworn testimony. 

I will quote some of Snow’s testimony, sworn to and laid before 
the honorable court to aid them to do justice in the case: — 

(R. 339.) I remember distinctly that Mr. Glover often questioned 
me about the use of the Brockton sludge beds, which was some time in 


52 


1895, and about how long the sludge took to dry out on any particular 
sludge bed to an extent sufficient to permit the next dose of sewage 
being applied to the same filter. This time was a week, and from this 
fact Mr. Glover obtained the idea of having seven primary filter beds, 
one for each day in the week. I know this to be so because of the 
conversation Mr. Glover had with me, and the fact that he told me it 
was his idea to have a sludge filter for every day in the week. 

(R. 344.) I do not wish to be understood as meaning that the action 
in the primary filter bed is limited to straining only; but I do mean that 
the action on the liquid was intentionally limited to only such bacterial 
action as would occur in the rapid .passage of sewage through a strainer, 
that is, largely aerobic action; and that the action on the sludge or 
intercepted solids was intentionally limited to such bacterial action as 
occurs in the sludge strained on the Brockton sludge filters, namely, 
largely the oxidizing or aerobic bacteria. 

(R. 335.) I first met Mr. Glover in the spring of 1882, in an 
engineer’s office at the City Hall, Brockton, Mass., where I was em¬ 
ployed. Mr. Glover made that office a kind of headquarters. He 

experimented that summer at the poor farm, and I made various 

sketches for him and became familiar with his ideas. In 1890 I be¬ 
came city engineer, and from that time on he was a frequent caller 

at my home evenings and at my office daytimes. The conversation 

always related to sewage disposal. Mr. Glover made a confidant of me 
in many matters relating to his ambitions to make a business success of 
his invention, and I knew of his frequent disappointments. 

(R. 394.) As near as I can recollect, certain beds were first set 
apart to receive sludge and nothing but sludge in the fall of 1895, and 
before this time the sludge was either mixed with the entire volume of 
the sewage in the reservoir, or it was delivered as sludge or as concen¬ 
trated sewage upon beds upon which crops were being grown. 

(R. 308.) On page 27 of my report for 1896 I said: “ The 1 agitator 9 
has been operated as in the last two months of 1895, viz., for a few 
minutes at the end of each pump run, sending the sludge or heavier 
sewage to the beds at certain times. ,, 

(R. 400.) I do not deny that Mr. Glover contemplated the same sort 
of action in the settling tanks of the plan he offered to the city of 
Brockton, in 1887, as he claimed took place and destroyed the solids in 
his cesspools. 

(R. 384.) I have been directly connected, either personally or through 
the firm of which I am the senior member, with the design and con¬ 
struction of ten plants comprising a combination of septic action with 
subsequent oxidation of the septic effluent, which plants have been 
completed and operated for some time; and, in addition to these, about 


53 


as many more for which plans have been made and either officially 
approved by the State in which the municipality is located, or the plans 
are about to be submitted for approval. 

I can fancy the old soldier marching out to the Brockton muster 
field with Snow on a bleak November day to see Snow’s seven acres 
of sludge filters, one for each day in the week, operated as strainers, 
and getting his ideas of his primary filters from Snow. But 
Glover’s application for his second patent was on file in Washington 
Sept. 23, 1895. 

Now, Snow was the only witness that defendant produced to 
construe for the court the meaning of the second Glover patent. 
Snow thus construed the patent: — 

This outlet pipe (“ which communicates with the filter bed, and re¬ 
ceives the effluent therefrom and delivers it to the corresponding second¬ 
ary bed”) is shown in the drawing without any gate, and there is no 
mention in the description of the apparatus, anywhere, of the intended 
manner of use of this outlet pipe except the words I have just above 
quoted. It is therefore plainly evident that, in the absence of any 
gate or valve on the outlet pipe from the primary filter bed to its 
corresponding secondary filter bed, the retaining of the solids in the 
primary filter bed was to be accomplished by the filtering material, and 
that the liquid was to have free, unobstructed passage through the said 
outlet pipe at all times; or, in other words, there is no indication that 
there was any intention of holding the liquid in the primary filters, as is 
done in contact filters or settling tanks, or septic tanks where the liquid 
is purposely held back by gates. 

This stuff might have been offered to the court by counsel whose 
business it is, or seems to be, to misrepresent the facts; but for an 
expert in the art of filtration it is another matter. 

Snow was construing that form of the apparatus shown in Fig. 
4 (page 12), where the primary filter bed is shown as charged with 
sewage. He not only does not find any gate or valve to the outlet 
pipe, but he does not find any inlet pipe, with gate controlling the 
flow, shown in Fig. 5, and might argue or testify that the tank was 
intended for a schoolhouse or a cold-air closet. The patent specifies 
“ means for charging the same [primary filter beds] with sewage: ” 
and Fig. 5, a cut reproduced from patent, shows the' inlet pipe 
with gate, which is not otherwise specified, but which clearly indi- 


54 


cates that the flow of sewage is under control in the Glover 
apparatus. The fact that there is no gate shown to outlet pipe of 
tank depicted in Fig. 4 (p. 12) indicates that the apparatus was not 
designed for a settling tank, but for a continuous flow through 
a water-tight tank, and for putrefactive action, or rapid filtration. 

In a formal address to the American Society of Civil Engineers, 
Sept. 25, 1901, when the Glover patents were under discussion by 
the society, Snow said: “No man has ever been able to tell just 
what Mr. Amasa Glover of Brockton, Mass., did invent or discover, 
and patent.” Yet three years afterwards Snow was not only able 
to inform the court just what Glover “did invent or discover, and 
patent,” but the very workings of Glover’s mind. 

The plans and specifications for a ship may convey no meaning to 
a farmer, but they are understood by the ship builder; the plans 
and specifications for a locomotive in like manner are understood 
by the master mechanic; the plans and specifications for a dwelling- 
house are intelligible reading to the builder. 

The plans and specification of Patent No. 559,522, the Glover 
second patent, were presented to Prof. A. Prescott Folwell; and 
he explained to the court how the Glover apparatus, specified by 
the patent, would operate. His opinion was sustained by Messrs. 
Rudolph Hering, William E. McClintock, J. Y. McClintock, 
LeGrand Brown and Prof. Charles McMillan, all of whom are 
men eminent in the engineering profession, and skilled in the art 
to which the patent appertains. 

To offset the opinion of these gentlemen as to what the patent 
discloses, the defendant depended upon the evidence of one very 
unreliable witness, a sample of whose evidence has been quoted. 

The defendant had three other witnesses. City Engineer George 
A. Carpenter, Mr. Leonard Metcalf and Prof. Leonard P. Kin- 
nicutt; but none of them were allowed to testify as to what the 
patent discloses to those skilled in the art of filtration. 

The question arises. What do the court mean by rapid filtration? 
The construction of the primary‘filter-beds specified by the patent, 
with their trapped outlets, prevents any kind of oxidation. 

In finding that the second Glover patent is for rapid filtration, 
the court agree with our experts. 

There is more involved in this case than the fact that rapid filtra¬ 
tion can be brought about by the Glover apparatus; it is a question 
that four great nations are interested in, — Germany, France, Great 


55 


Britain and the United States; for claimants for the honor of 
making the discovery of the value of putrefactive action in purifica¬ 
tion come from each of these countries, — Dr. Alexander Mueller 
of Germany, M. Louis Mouras of France, Amasa S. Glover of 
the United States, and Donald Cameron, C. E., of Great Britain. 

The deeper I have gone into the matter the more convinced I am 
of the justice of the claims made for Glover as being the original 
discoverer and inventor of the process of utilizing putrefactive 
action, not only in rapid filtration, but also in any kind of filtration. 
The evidence and exhibits in our case all point that way. As the 
case developed, it appeared that we had the most to fear from 
anticipation from Dr. Mueller of Berlin; but a careful translation 
of the Mueller patent and Mueller’s own statement in regard to his 
discovery showed that he did not anticipate Glover. 

If the court construe the patent in accord with the law of 
Congress, which granted the patent and gave the right to the court 
to construe the patent, as understood by persons skilled in the art 
to which the patent appertains, — the court, in giving to us a sys¬ 
tem of rapid filtration, give to us the combination of septic action 
and oxidation. 

If the court intended to find that the Glover patent is for a 
system of rapid filtration, comprising two series of oxidizing filter 
beds wherever situated, the court not only go outside of the patent, 
but ignore all the evidence in the case, and construe the patent for 
an absurdity, that the Patent Office, from a misunderstanding of the 
construction and use of the Glover apparatus, explicitly refused to 
patent. 

The public and interested parties have no right to assume that 
the court are in error. The assumption is that the court are right 
in their finding, and that the court have not been misled. 

If Snow’s pretended stupidity in comprehending Glover’s ideas 
as to rapid filtration gave him the possession of the system and the 
right to use it, it is an easy way to acquire property, it is so simple; 
but it is a bad precedent. 

The court were informed by disinterested gentlemen and men of 
honor that the primary filter beds in the patent are for rapid fil¬ 
tration, and are in fact septic tanks, so called; Snow’s evidence 
shows that, if the liquid is retained in tank, as shown in patent, it 
is a septic tank. 

Science teaches that things equal to the same thing are equal to 


L OF C, 


AUG 5 1907 


56 


each other; and the law is established that the Glover apparatus is 
for rapid filtration. It is of common knowledge that the septic 
tank is for rapid filtration. While the law may not be a fixed sci¬ 
ence, it is not a lottery, a horse race or a game of chance; it pur¬ 
ports to be somewhat scientific. The decision of the court as to a 
matter of fact whether the primary filter beds in the patent are 
septic tanks and for rapid filtration is based upon the evidence 
submitted to the court, and is in accord with the facts. Rapid fil¬ 
tration and septic action by the Glover apparatus are synonymous 
terms, — things equal to the same thing, things that are the same 
thing. 

It appears that additional litigation becomes necessary to demon¬ 
strate the mathematical axiom: — 

The Glover second patent is for rapid filtration (court). 

The septic tank is for rapid filtration (common knowledge). 

The second Glover patent is for the septic tank. 

In the meanwhile, I am doing my best to impart to the whole 
world information in regard to Glover’s discovery and invention of 
a system of rapid filtration, as I have been doing almost continu¬ 
ously since 1895. We desire the system to be used, in any event; 
we claim a reasonable royalty for the construction and use of our 
patented apparatus; we shall honestly endeavor to collect what is 
our due; and this document may be taken as a legal warning to in¬ 
fringers, and a summons or invitation to call at the office of the 
treasurer of the company and settle, and save costs. 


Respectfully submitted to interested parties by 




Feb. 18, 1907. 


UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE. 


[Condensed Specification relating to Primary Filter Beds of Second Glover 
Patent No. 559,522, for Sewage Apparatus for Kapid Filtration.] 


This invention has for its object to permit 
the filtration of sewage on a large scale 
without making the same offensive ; and it 
consists in an apparatus comprising a series 
of primary filter beds and means for charg¬ 
ing the same with sewage, a structure in¬ 
closing said primary beds and having 
provision for the removal of the gases 
emanating therefrom, the said primary beds 
being constructed to separate the solid from 
the liquid matter and to discharge the efflu¬ 
ent wholly through filtering material, and a 
series of secondary filter beds located out¬ 
side the said structure and arranged to 
receive said effluent by gravitation and 
adapted to complete the purification of the 
same, the effluent being clarified and suffi¬ 
ciently purified and deprived of offensive 
matter by the primary filter beds to permit 
its treatment by the secondary beds in the 
open air without offense . . . drawings 
[see page 12] forming a part of this 
specification. . . . 

The sewage may be first deposited in a 
settling-tank . . . and after sedimentation 
of chemical precipitation in said tank the 
liquid and the sludge may be drawn off 
onto the primary filter beds . . . the set¬ 
tling-tank connected with pipe through 
which the sewage may be transferred to 
the primary filter-beds. . . . 

The primary beds are constructed to 
arrest the solid matter and permit the 
escape of the liquid matter wholly through 
filtering material onto the secondary beds, 
so that the effluent will contain compara¬ 
tively little offensive matter. The primary 
beds may be of any suitable construction to 
accomplish this end. For example, they 
may have water-tight bottoms of concrete 


and a series of porous pipes, disposed upon 
the said bottoms and converging to an out- 
let pipe, the walls of said pipes constituting 
the filtering material. The pipes have no 
direct communication with the spaces in¬ 
closed by the walls of the primary beds and 
the effluent enters said pipes only through 
the porous wall of the pipes, which may be 
of unglazed earthenware. 

I show primary filter beds composed of 
filtering material, such as sand and gravel 
or any of the materials used for such pur¬ 
poses, resting on a liquid-tight concrete 
bottom. An outlet pipe communicates with 
the filter bed and receives the effluent there¬ 
from and delivers it to the corresponding 
secondary bed. . . . 

It will be seen [upon trial] that the sew¬ 
age matter is separated in the primary beds 
into two parts, the offensive matter being 
retained in the gas-removing structure, 
where it may be composted with ashes, 
loam, or sand and removed without offense, 
while the effluent is clarified and partially 
purified by being deprived of the greater 
part of the offensive matter, so that it may 
be rapidly disposed of in the open air by 
the secondary beds without being a source 
of offense. The secondary bed should be 
of much larger area than the primary beds. 

I prefer to provide seven or more of the 
primary beds and an equal number of sec¬ 
ondary beds, each primary bed and the 
accompanying secondary bed being of 
sufficient capacity to dispose of one day’s 
sewage. The solid matter deposited in the 
primary beds may be removed from time to 
time in any suitable way. . . . 

While the primary filtration takes place 
in a structure adapted to remove offensive 








gases, the secondary treatment, being in the 
open air, may extend for such length of 
time or over such an area of secondary beds 
as to completely dispose of the sewage. 

Claim [of Glover Second Patent],— 

A sewage apparatus comprising a series 
of stationary primary filter beds, a structure 
over said beds with provision for the re¬ 
moval of offensive gases therefrom, and a 
series of stationary secondary filter beds 
located outside the said structure and ar- 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



ranged to receive by gravitation the effluent 
from the primary filter beds, the said prim¬ 
ary beds being constructed to discharge the 
effluent wholly through filtering material, 
whereby the offensive matter is retained in 
the structure and the effluent is clarified 
and partially purified, and whereby the 
said eflluent may receive subsequent treat¬ 
ment in the open air by extensive secondary 
beds for any required length of time with¬ 
out offense. 



NOTE. 

Glover’s first patent No. 258,744. 

Opinion of the United States Circuit Court for the District of Rhode Island. August 25, 1904. 

Opinion of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, June 13,1905 ; August 15, 1906. 


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